Schools · Energy savings

Your school is heating empty classrooms. We can prove it — and stop it.

Schools typically waste 20–30% of their energy out of hours — evenings, weekends and holidays. Sensors measure the waste, the platform removes it automatically, and the savings are banked towards solar, batteries and beyond.

123 schools

of delivery behind the model

20–30%

of the energy bill, typical saving

< 14 months

payback on controls

Comfort held

HSE & BB101 floors guaranteed

The Waste — Measured, Not Estimated

What the meters actually show.

These figures come from half-hourly meter data and classroom sensors across measured UK schools.

Gas, unmanaged school

53%

of annual gas burned outside occupied hours — evenings, weekends and holidays, heating nobody.

Electricity, secondary school

97 kW

running at 3am, every night of the year — a baseload worth more than a primary school's whole heating bill.

Holiday classrooms

21–27°C

measured in empty classrooms during holidays, when 12°C protects the building. Nine degrees bought for nobody.

Why It Happens

Nobody can see it — so nobody can stop it.

No visibility

90% of buildings have no monitoring. The bill arrives quarterly; the waste happens half-hour by half-hour.

Schedules set once

Heating programmed years ago for a timetable that no longer exists — and never reviewed.

Holidays inherit term time

Weekends and holidays run on weekday settings. Summer boilers cycle as if children were at their desks.

Broken meters go unnoticed

We found meters reading zero for two years, and a school gas meter under-reading 50-fold — confirmed in the estate's own issue log.

What You Can Do About It

Measure. See. Act. Prove.

01 · Week 1

Measure

~£1,300 of sensors and a boiler controller per school. Zone temperatures, CO₂, outside air, meters.

02 · Month 1

See

The platform shows the waste signatures — out-of-hours heating, night loads, holiday burn — in pounds.

03 · Term 1

Act

Schedules align to real occupancy, automatically. Classrooms warm for arrival; comfort floors (HSE 16°C, BB101 air quality) are hard constraints.

04 · Ongoing

Prove

Savings verified against utility data (IPMVP Option C). The same sensor log is your compliance record.

The Proof

Same estate. Same school type. One difference.

School without controls

53%

of gas burned outside occupied hours

School where the sensor data was acted on

16%

same measure, after manual optimisation

One person, reading the sensor data, re-scheduled one school’s heating — and cut out-of-hours gas to 16% with zero weekend burn. The platform automates exactly that intervention, for every school, permanently.

Savings Estimator

What is your school wasting?

Enter your annual energy spend from your bills. Five operational levers, benchmarked on measured schools — your half-hourly data turns the estimate into a measured figure.

Estimated annual saving

£19,310

range £11,860£28,210 (pessimistic – optimistic)

24%

Share of your bill

~47 tCO₂e/yr

CO₂ avoided

~£1,295

Hardware to start

< 2 months

Indicative payback

Where the saving comes from

Out-of-hours schedule£15,000
Setpoint trim£2,000
Pump scheduling£450
Hot-water scheduling£645
Night & standby load£1,215

heatingelectricity

When it pays for itself

hardware £1,295month 10m6m12m18m24m

Cumulative central saving vs hardware cost, first 24 months.

Estimate only — central scenario of a five-lever model benchmarked on measured schools, scaled for your existing controls. 30p/kWh electricity and 7p/kWh gas for the CO₂ conversion (DEFRA-style factors). Your half-hourly meter data turns this into a measured figure.

Where The Savings Can Take You

The pathway to a school microgrid.

Banked savings become a war chest, and the war chest follows one rule: each phase buys itself. Schools have the roof for solar, the fields and car parks for ground-source heat and storage — and they’re empty exactly when solar peaks.

Phase 1 · Now

Controls

Stop the waste. Savings begin in months, verified against your bills.

Phase 2 · Years 3–7

Solar

The war chest funds rooftop PV — no new budget asked for.

Phase 3 · Years 5–10

Battery + fleet

Storage lifts self-use; summer solar charges fleet vehicles on your car park.

Phase 4 · With finance

Heat pump → microgrid

Ground loops under playing fields decarbonise heat, blended with grant funding. The school becomes community energy infrastructure.

Start Small. Prove It. Scale It.

One pilot school. One term. One evidence pack.

~£1,300 of kit, savings measured against your own bills, and a board-ready report at the end of it.