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Partnership launched to help schools wasting £100K on energy per year

students with bags

eEnergy, the digital energy services company, has announced new partnerships with 65 schools across the UK to reduce energy waste, saving schools more than £5 million by 2032. The projects will deliver clean energy, numerous energy conservation measures, and low carbon technologies including electric vehicle (EV) chargers.

eEnergy expects to reduce the combined annual carbon emissions of its partner schools by 830 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to the emissions of 1,328 cars. The threat of the climate emergency, coupled with record energy prices, has led to huge growing demand from across the UK’s education sector for energy management and net zero solutions.

Among the new agreements signed since the start of the year is a partnership with the HEART Academies Trust, which runs four academies in Bedford. The partnership will see the installation of LED lighting to improve teaching environments, plus MYZeERO, its proprietary smart monitoring platform to visualise granular energy consumption enabling accurate insights into energy waste, as well as the installation of onsite solar generation to help the schools significantly reduce energy costs.

The agreement also includes plans to install EV charging, through a charging-as-a-service proposition, where schools pay a monthly subscription fee for each charger, following the recent launch of eCharge, with Heads of Terms agreed for an initial 10 charge points to be installed across the estate this year.  Initial on-site work will commence in May, with installations completed during the summer holiday in readiness for the new school year.

As part of eEnergy’s energy-as-a-service offering, all energy conservation measures will be installed with no upfront cost to the schools. In total, the combined energy savings could reduce the Trust’s energy bills by almost £1.8m over the next 10 years and will release £869,000 of surplus cash which the Trust can re-invest.

Simon Smith Managing Director of Energy Efficiency at eEnergy:

“We have seen unprecedented demand from schools across the UK looking for feasible and immediate ways to meet the energy crisis. For many schools, reducing energy usage and reaching net zero is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Doing so has the potential to deliver huge benefits by transforming energy usage in the short-term and turning schools into the environmental leaders of the future.” 

The average secondary school wastes up to £100,000 of energy per year, meaning that sky-high energy prices have had a serious impact on the sector. By adopting readily available solutions, UK schools could reduce energy costs by over £300 million per year and prevent 625,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually across the 24,400 schools in the UK[2]. The contract-based service offered by eEnergy enables schools to access carbon reduction solutions without the upfront costs, unlocking more opportunities to implement otherwise costly energy efficiency, procurement, and generation measures.

Renewable energy also holds the key to both short and long-term emissions reductions, with onsite renewable generation offering a cheaper, cleaner, and more independent mode of accessing energy. By removing the upfront cost, eEnergy is helping more schools to cut costs while unleashing net zero.

Lisa Archer, Chief Operating Officer of HEART Academies Trust:

“Investing in renewable technologies is a key priority for our Trust. Climate change is a global issue and schools have a critical role to play, both directly in taking action to reduce their climate footprint, and indirectly through education and developing green skills in the next generation. It is our intention that our partnership with eEnergy will help deliver against both of these priorities as part of our new Climate and Sustainability strategy.”


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