Whether you’re a teacher, headmaster, guidance counselor or staff, you can put all your efforts together to save electricity in school. There’s really no one specific formula that you can follow in order to successfully conserve energy – be it at school or at home. But what does work is putting all the individual efforts together to experience great results.
This means that if each and every student in the school is aware of the many ways to conserve electricity and they are practicing it in school and at home, more energy will be saved.
Here are the top ways to save electricity in schools:
Turn saving electricity into a group project
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There’s no one magical formula when it comes to how electricity can be conserved. Instead, it is a combination of individual and group efforts. The good news is that you can easily start small.
Make a chart which shows a list of ways that kids can save electricity and water, both at home and in school. The language used should be age-appropriate, the tips should be practical, and the sign should be colorful to make it more attractive to the kids. Some of the items that you can include in the list are turning off the lights when no one is using them, not letting the water from the faucet flow while brushing their teeth or washing their hands, etc.
At the end of each school day, turn off all computers and screens
For every desktop or laptop computer turned off after school hours. Unfortunately, there are some school managements who do not exert the extra effort in ensuring that no computer is left on standby mode at the end of every school day.
To make this task easier, ask the kids themselves to shut down the computers that they are using at the end of each school day. The savings on your utility bills will be a lot when you enforce this simple policy. To take these savings even further, visit the Utility Bidder to ensure that your school is on the best possible tariff.
Replace all traditional light bulbs with energy-saving ones
Be it at home, in the office or at school, traditional light bulbs installed typically consume more energy than CFL bulbs. These energy-saving bulbs can cut back your electrical consumption for lighting by as much as 75%.
Maximize natural lighting by controlling the blinds and lights
Another light-related tip for conserving electricity in school is to control the way that blinds and lights are used. If you wish to maximize natural lighting, you can simply open the window blinds. As long as there is enough daylight, the students should be able to see the entire classroom without having to use artificial lighting, especially during the day.
Switch off before the holidays, weekends and mid-term breaks
During weekends, mid-term breaks and long holidays, it is a must to ensure that all the electrical appliances are switched off. If you leave even just one lighting fixture open and nobody’s at school to turn it off, you will be wasting electricity unnecessarily. Just before the break, make sure that printers, projectors, computers, lights, water heaters, boilers and all the other school equipment are turned off.
Use time clocks to switch everything off automatically after classes
After a one-hour Mathematics class, the teacher might forget to turn off the lights, fans or air conditioning unit inside a classroom. If this happens and no class will be occupying the room afterwards, a lot of electricity will be wasted.
A good solution for this would be to use time clocks. If you want the time clocks to also automatically shut everything off during the weekends, look for 7-day instead of just the 24-hour time clocks.
See to it that each classroom has an efficient cooling and heating system
For homes, schools and offices, half of the utility bills comprise of cooling and heating costs. In school, your number one priority should be to make sure that the temperature is comfortable for the students, whether it is summer or winter. This means that you have to make sure that the heating and cooling system inside the room and the entire school is efficient.
If a classroom is too hot, for example, do not open the window but turn down the thermostat instead. If night classes are held at school, schedule the room arrangements to be in one wing so that you can save money on heating costs.
Teach kids to conserve water, too
While you’re at it, why not teach the kids how to save water, too? Most of the tips that you can teach are things that they can do inside their own homes, like turning the tap off while they are brushing their teeth.
On the school management’s side, repairing leaking taps, installing water displacement devices, turning off urinals during the holidays and monitoring the reading on water meters are some of the ways to conserve water.
See to it that the staff in the pantry are using electricity and water efficiently
The pantry area is where electricity and water will be used the most, so you should make sure that the kitchen staff knows how to conserve both. Using tight-lidded pots and pans, only cooking food on suitable-sized cookers and thawing frozen foods at room temperature instead of putting them under running water are some of the things that can be done to save water and electricity in the kitchen.
Set a schedule for regular monitoring and repairs of timers and other energy-saving devices in school
During weekend or summer breaks, set a schedule to monitor and repair energy-saving devices in school. Clean fans, lights and refrigerator coils. Replace filters on air conditioning units. Check on water leaks in all the bathrooms and faucets. Check if all the timers are working. Doing such maintenance tasks will ensure that no electricity or water will be wasted once the kids go back to school.