Monitoring and setting targets

Carrying out the recommendations listed under the Practical Measures heading should help you achieve significant savings.  However, you will only know how much energy you have saved if you monitor your usage over this period.  

Just as importantly, in the longer term you need to make sure you can maintain, and hopefully improve upon your initial reductions - this is only likely to be successful if you have an ongoing monitoring regime in tandem with the setting of regular (e.g. annual) targets.

Other examples of the benefits of improvements to monitoring and targeting are:

• Areas of waste can be detected and preventative action taken

• Invoicing errors can be quickly identified and rectified

• Feedback can be given to end users on savings achieved

• Readings can be used for awareness and training purposes

It's worth emphasising that monitoring of energy will not in itself save energy - it is the analysis of the data and subsequent implementation of the findings that will realise true savings.

Recommendations:

1. A list of all utility meter locations, supply areas (including m² floor areas) and meter identification should be carried out. This information should be available to all relevant parties e.g. for benchmarking and analysis.

2. Implement monthly or weekly utility meter readings and collect data at school level.  Ensure data is disseminated in a uniform manner, i.e. in kWh.  Check this data against energy invoice data.

3. Investigate the usefulness of half hourly metering and online energy data analysis tools (for those larger schools that have half-hourly metering).

4. Assess out-of-operational-hours consumption and target areas of energy waste.

5. Assesses the usefulness of sub-metering of plant or individual blocks with high-energy use or separate uses, such as swimming pools.  Ensure separate building users are billed for actual consumption if required.

6. Main or sub-meter readings are used to highlight waste or calculate savings made by optimising the use of plant.

7. Set targets at individual schools or areas based on analysis

You can download a spreadsheet template for monitoring energy and water usage from the Sustainable Learning website.

For further information download Carbon Trust publications:

• GPG343 – Saving Energy - A Whole School Approach

• GPG125 - Monitoring and Targeting in Small and Medium-Sized Companies

Other suggestions

Data loggers are readily available to monitor electricity consumption in real time.  These simply clamp around the main electricity supply cable for the site you want to monitor, give a real-time readout of the current, and log weeks of data which can easily be downloaded to a laptop for analysis.  One example recommended by the consultants is available at www.spcmini.com.  A cheaper alternative at around £40-£50 is available from Current Cost.

Plug-in power meters are great education tools for monitoring power and energy consumption - they plug directly into a standard power socket, and themselves have a socket into which you plug the device you want to monitor.  Type "plug-in power monitor" into Google for some examples.

If you have any enquiries about your existing meter reading/billing arrangements, please contact Jane Abbott in County Supplies - 01962 826911.