News, updates and opinions from the EnergySparks Team
Over the past year, the number of schools that Energy Sparks supports has grown four fold. We are now releasing our first annual ‘Energy Efficiency in Schools’ report. This report aims to highlight some of the issues facing schools when it comes to energy efficiency. We also focus on what low cost, or no cost […] →Read more
If you have opened Energy Sparks this morning and found things look a little different, that’s because we have launched our exciting new advice pages. Over the last few months, our developers have been working hard to improve our detailed analysis pages designed primarily for our older student and adult users. We’ve taken onboard feedback […] →Read more
There are a number of updates happening on the Energy Sparks platform at the moment. The most significant of these is the update to the adult advice pages and their subsequent translation into Welsh. We’ve taken this opportunity to make a few other improvements, particularly now we have a much larger number of schools within […] →Read more
We are seeking new funding partners to enable our next phase of growth and to allow us to continue to support existing schools with a free or subsidised service. Energy Sparks has seen significant growth since last year. We currently provide our school specific energy management tool and education programme free of charge to over […] →Read more
We looked at the energy saving performance of schools that were on Energy Sparks during the Autumn term 2022, and have enough energy data to compare their consumption with the Autumn term in 2021. An amazing 332 schools achieved an average reduction of 10% in their electricity use. That’s over 3 million kWh across the 332 schools, a […] →Read more
In December, the Department for Education released new energy efficiency guidance for the school and further education estate. At the same time they announced that every state school in England would receive funding towards energy efficiency improvements. If anyone hasn’t spent it already, here is our guide on the most important things to use it […] →Read more
As well as reducing your energy consumption, you can also score points for every pupil activity you record on Energy Sparks. Keep recording activities throughout the year and you could be top of the scoreboard! Thanks to our funders we will be rewarding top scoring schools with grants towards an energy saving improvement of your choice. Maybe […] →Read more
It is common in schools for the heating to come on too early in the morning. There are a couple of common reasons for this: Problems with the optimum start control Many schools have ‘optimum start control’ configured which looks at the outside and inside temperatures and automatically schedules the heating to start earlier in […] →Read more
The biggest savings in energy consumption can be made by making sure heating and hot water are turned off during weekends and holidays, by turning thermostats down (every 1C reduction in the temperature in a schools should reduce gas consumption by about 10%) and by making sure the heating doesn’t come on too early in […] →Read more
Energy Sparks is delighted to announce Welsh Government is funding a Welsh Language version of the Energy Sparks energy management tool and its sustainability education resources for schools. By September 2022. Energy Sparks plans to release a translated website that focuses on the educational content, pupil and adult dashboards. A second release that covers more of […] →Read more