School Energy Savings

Aberdeenshire Council’s 175 schools account for almost half of the annual consumption for all public buildings in Aberdeenshire. It follows that considerable efforts are made to reduce energy consumption in the schools to decrease carbon emissions and costs. The Energy Management Team employs numerous methods to reduce consumption:

• Implementing projects through CEEF
• Energy Awareness Campaigns including school talks on energy consumption and the associated environmental effects.
• Installing renewable energy to provide space heating.

Some examples of recent energy and carbon saving projects are detailed below:

• A rolling programme of valve and flange insulation in boiler plant rooms. To date 30 schools have the insulation jackets installed. Annually, these installations combined save 400 tonnes CO2; almost 2 million kWhs of energy, equalling £50,000.
• A rolling programme of awareness presentations and energy monitoring experiments.  In 2008, 10 schools, so far, have received presentations; with 3 taking part in a 2 week monitoring exercise to reduce consumption. Portlethen Primary School, for example, managed to save 45% of the energy used at school (and almost 1 tonne of CO2) in the two week experiment.
• A wood-chip boiler has been installed at Aboyne Academy to provide heating and hot water to the entire campus. The biomass boiler saves 600 tonnes CO2 annually and decreases the cost paid for heating fuel by 25%. This installation was awarded the ‘Delivering Excellence’ award at this years COSLA sustainability awards ceremony in March. The success of this scheme has prompted further developments with feasibility studies going ahead for a number of other biomass projects.