With the government spending millions on a new campaign to educate people on how to save energy, STEM charity SATRO and sustainable energy company Powercor have revealed that primary school children might just be the best source of advice for households and businesses looking to save on energy costs.
SATRO and Powercor undertook the 2022 Energy Saving Challenge from 1st March 2022 to 30th June 2022. The competition saw 11 primary schools compete to see which would be able to devise and implement changes that would allow them to save the most on energy costs, and change their school and homes’ attitudes towards energy usages and behaviours in general.
Amazingly, the best performing school saved 34% on its energy costs over a four month period. The second and third placed schools saved 27% and 21% respectively. On average one tonne of carbon saved per school in the four month period!
“How we behave when it comes to using energy, whether that’s in a school, home or business, can have a dramatic effect on how much we use,” said Anne Edward, CEO of SATRO. “We only have to look at the results these few schools achieved to demonstrate that fact.”
Top tips from SATRO’s Energy Saving competition include:
- Understand how energy use impacts climate change, how much it costs and how much can be saved through making behavioural changes – if people aren’t aware of the true cost of their actions, they won’t be inclined to change how they behave
- Turns things off when you are not using them – a light switch here, a TV there; it all adds up and makes a difference
- Communicate regularly with those in your organisation, community and family – educating and reminding people to turn things off when not in use at school, work or home
- Set clear goals and incentivise those around you – recognise good behaviour at home or school, even if that’s just turning the lights off regularly. Run competitions to see who can save the most energy with the support of measurement technology
“SATRO’s event has been a great project and we are delighted to have been involved,” said Chris Wright, Technical Director at Powercor. “Rapidly rising energy costs are at the heart of the current cost of living crisis, but the children have demonstrated that with just a few behaviour changes, significant amounts can be saved. Combine this with new green technologies and we shouldn’t really have a problem as a country.”
SATRO’s Energy Saving Challenge took place between March and June amongst 11 primary schools in Surrey. The competition will run again in 2023, this time with 20+ schools expected to take part.
