School kitchens can consume a lot of electricity. To produce hundreds of dinners to be served in a very short period of time, schools need industrial scale equipment.
Let's look at the data from schools with kitchens and schools with out. Compare the graphs of Schools and A and B with those of Schools C, D and E. The schools in one group have a kitchen onsite, the others do not. Can you tell which is which?
Group 1
School A
School B
Group 2
School C
School D
School E
Create a questionnaire to ask your kitchen staff about their energy use. You may want to ask questions like:
When you do arrive and leave?
What equipment do you switch on when you arrive?
What time are the ovens/ dishwashers/sterilisers/ ventilation hoods/ kettles turned on and off?
When do fridges and freezers get turned off?
Answers The schools in Group A have kitchens. Their energy consumption is typically high until lunchtime then tails off.