Following the Energy Warrior Conference with Jen from Egni Coop, we received an email from Nikki telling us that our baseload was higher than other schools of a similar size. We looked at the amount of energy we are using outside of school hours on Energy Sparks and it seems high. We know that the blue section on the bar charts shows us the electricity used on school days but when the school is closed. We can see a massive drop off in electricity use over the summer that doesn't coincide with the school holiday so we would like to find out why this is. We have ordered an device to monitor the energy our devices use so that we can find out which devices are using the most energy, Mrs Taylor spoke with the head and the caretaker about the findings and we are going to hold a meeting next week to discuss any changes we can make. The Green Team have decided to make saving energy their priority over the coming months, they are planning an assembly/video to shared with the wider school community and possibly online.
Activity description
What does your school use electricity for?
Some of those items could be switched off overnight but some of them need to be kept on all the time (at least during term time). The electricity that is needed to power items that keep running at all times is called your baseload. This can be measured by how much energy is being consumed when the school is empty (evenings, weekends and holidays).
More than half of this school's energy consumption is when the school is closed!
Why would you want to keep paying for electricity when no one is in school? Cutting down on this means cutting costs plus reducing your carbon footprint.
Look at the following graphs. One shows an example of a school managing its baseload well and the other shows an inefficient baseload. Can you tell which is which? (Each point on this graph represents the average over the hours a school is closed on that day).
Can you see how the baseload in the first example varies wildly from day to day? This means that the baseload is not consistent. From one day to another different amounts of electricity are being used when the school is closed. Let’s have a closer look. These graphs show the electricity being used at hour hourly intervals from 00:00 to 23:30.
school day
holiday
weekend
Is there anything about the energy use that looks strange? Can you think of a reason why so much energy is being used at that time. This might be something your Caretaker/ Site Manager could help you with.
Let’s look at the second example again. Can you see how in March 2021 something dramatically changed. What do you think the cause of this might have been? a. All electrical items were switched off b. Something that uses a little bit of electricity was left on c. Something that uses a lot of electricity was left on
Look at your school
Change units
Explore
We do not have enough data at the moment to display this chart
Look carefully at the graph. How has the baseload changed over time? Does it change seasonally (from summer to winter)? Are there any unusual spikes or drops? What stories can you tell by looking at the data? Click on the graph and compare school days with weekends and holidays. Is electricity being used at the same time every day?
Let’s look at the second example again. Can you see how in March 2021 something dramatically changed. What do you think the cause of this might have been?
Electric heating was left on. If this hadn’t been spotted it would have cost the school an additional £2600 over the course of a year. Find out more about that and how the problem was solved in our Alerts case study.
Energy Sparks supports Pennar Community School in partnership with Egni Coop
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