Save Energy

We have had saving energy down as a key target for our Eco Action team for several months now but done very little about it. This term seems like the right time to tackle this important issue.

I have to admit that I am not the best energy saver myself and have been put to shame by a number of you! Because today is the first day of 2009 I have made a personal New Years resolution to save as much energy as possible without affecting quality of life. Over the next year I will  be doing a series of entries to let you know how I’m getting on so you can see if you can beat my energy saving attempts.

My efforts have begun with the purchase of an energy monitor to see how much electricity I’m using and the purchase of some energy saving bulbs, I’ll let you know how I get on.

In school we are hoping to go through a similar process, obviously we are lucky to have a well insulated new building crammed full of energy saving features, but that does not mean we can’t do better still! We have already identified lights and computers being left on as an area to save on already. Again there will be much more on this to follow.

Energy Use

At Eco Club today 30 of us piled into room 3 to listen to Mr. Cox and Mr. Heighton tell us about how much energy we waste in our new school building. Mr. Heighton showed us an electricity meter that measures how much an appliance uses (see below). He plugged a computer in as a demonstration. We found out that even if a computer is switched off, if the plug is on at the mains it still pulls power. We worked out that if all the computers were left in this state then it costs the school nearly £10 a day (thats about £3500 a year). If the computers are left on but not used it costs £80 a day! Not only can we save a lot of money but also a lot of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) being released. Remember that CO2 is a “Greenhouse” gas that contributes to Global Warming.

We have decided to do something about it and most of the Eco Clubbers have volunteered to help turn appliances off at the end and during the day. Mr. Cox will also investigate whether the building management system can shut down power centrally. Our main aim is to cut the electricity use of the school as much as possible and this will start by monitoring our use more carefully.

 

Lets Save Energy!

6.00pm Wednesday 27th February to 6.00pm on the 28th February is Energy Saving Day when we are all being invited to take part in an experiment to cut down on our electricity use. Find out how we are doing on the energy saving day website. At the time of writing we were not doing so well and using 1% more energy than usual. Lets hope we can do better at school!

The Eco Action Team met again today. Among the many things on the agenda was the issue of Energy Saving which is a new addition to our Action Plan. This Friday Eco Club will be having a special meeting on this topic. Mr. Heighton has been measuring the amount of energy used by various things around the building and Mr. Cox will present some of the key issues.

Also joining us today was Penny from Leicestershire County Council. she told us about plans for a Waste Education Pack and the Action team were able to give her their opinions about how waste management should be taught.