School Comparison Tool

This tool allows you to compare the energy performance of a number of schools within a Local Authority group or across the whole of Energy Sparks. The aim is to allow you to identify the best and worst performing schools to provide examples of best practice and to identify the schools needing the most support to improve their energy management.

Benchmark list, All benchmarks on a single page

School groups

Bath and NE Somerset

Durham

East Sussex

Girls Day School Trust

Highland

Oxfordshire

Pembrokeshire

Sheffield

Somerset

Swansea

Wellsway MAT

Scoreboards

Bath area scoreboard

Durham schools scoreboard

East Sussex schools scoreboard

Girls Day School Trust scoreboard

Highland schools scoreboard

Oxfordshire schools scoreboard

Pembrokshire schools scoreboard

Sheffield schools scoreboard

Somerset schools scoreboard

Swansea schools scoreboard

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Heating start time (potentially coming on too early in morning)

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This benchmark shows what time the boilers having been starting on average in the last week.

Generally, if the weather last week was mild then you might expect the heating to be coming on at about 6:30am. In colder weather depending on the fabric (insulation, thermal mass) of the school you might expect the heating to start earlier at perhaps 3:00am. If it's coming on earlier the school's boiler control probably warrants further investigation.

If the boiler is coming on too early remedies include:

• Monitoring temperature in the school in the early morning - typically available via the school's BMS or boiler controller, or via temperature logger (£20 - or you can borrow one from Energy Sparks)
• Has the school's thermostat been correctly located, if in a cold poorly insulated hall then classrooms might be up to temperature many hours before the hall, so perhaps the thermostat could be relocated, or the hall's thermostat's settings could be lowered (16C or less)?
• Otherwise consider whether the radiator output is high enough to get the school up to temperature quickly? Fan convector radiators should take under 30 minutes to get a room up to temperature even in cold weather, undersized traditional radiators can take hours. Is the flow temperature high enough, does the pipework allow adequate distribution of heat, do the radiators have adequate output, have their TRVs been set too low for the main boiler thermostat?
• If the boiler's starting time has been set because school users have complained it's too cold in the morning, consider experimenting with the start time. We generally recommend starting the boiler 2 hours early on a Monday, to give the school more time to heat up from the weekend, this may mitigate most of the complaints?
• If the boiler doesn't have optimum start control (the controller based on internal and external temperatures works out the optimum time to start the boiler each morning) consider getting one installed

School name	Average heating start time (last week)	Average heating start time last year	Annual saving if improve to exemplar
Saltford C of E Primary School		05:28

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Optimum start analysis

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This experimental analysis attempts to help determine whether a school's optimum start control is working by looking at the times the boiler has started over the last year.

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The 'standard deviation' column shows over how many hours the starting time has varied over the last year. If this is more than an hour or so, it might indicate the optimum start control is working, or it could be that someone has made lots of adjustments to the boiler start time during the year.

The 'Regression model optimum start R2' indicates how well correlated with outside temperature the start time of the boiler was. The closer to 1.0, the more correlated it was and therefore the more likely the optimum start control is working well.

School name	Average heating start time last year	Standard deviation of start time - hours, last year	Optimum start rating	Regression model optimum start time	Regression model optimum start sensitivity to outside temperature	Regression model optimum start r2	Average heating start time last week
Saltford C of E Primary School	05:28	1.46	8.3	6.09	0.512	0.03

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However, these calculations are experimental and might not provide good indicators of how well the optimum start is working for all schools. Drilling down to look at the data for an individual school should provide a better indication.