How Does Our School Use Energy?

Schools use large amounts of energy. Lessons about energy can be made more practical and enjoyable by encouraging pupils to find out how their school uses energy, and how they can help to save energy in practice.

How to begin:

• Get hold of information on your school’s energy consumption.
• Get pupils to find out whereabouts in your school this energy is used.  
• Plan energy-saving measures with your pupils, and put them into action.  
• Check subsequent energy consumption levels to find out how effective these measures have been. Fins out whether the money saved can be used in ways that benefit the school and its pupils.

Factors shaping a school’s energy use

Many factors may affect the energy consumption of large premises like schools:

• Routine behaviour of pupils, teachers and other school staff  
• How the school is used in the evenings, at weekends or during the holidays
• How the school kitchen is equipped and run
• The age and design of the school   
• The age and condition of the school’s heating, lighting, ventilation and water supply systems

How does our school use energy?

In Finnish schools ventilation systems typically account for more than half of total heating energy consumption, while lighting accounts for 45-55% of electricity use. Schools’ kitchens account for some 10-15% of their total energy use. The amounts of electricity used by plug-in electrical appliances vary greatly from school to school, depending on the usage of computers, projectors, photocopiers etc. Water heating accounts for around 5-10% of schools’ total energy consumption.