What is out of hours usage?
Out of hours electricity use is the amount of electricity used when the school is closed - overnight, at weekends and during the holidays. Reducing out of hours electricity use is one of the easiest, and cheapest ways of saving lots of energy.
Getting the school opening hours right on your account
The analysis within this page is based on the school opening hours set for your school. It is best to set these to be as accurate as you can so that you receive appropriate advice.
We advise that opening hours are set for when the school is fully operational - the majority of staff and pupils are in the school. There will be periods of time before and after school when a number of pupils are in breakfast or after school clubs and teachers are working, but energy needs will be considerably lower at these times. The default settings when a school is activated on Energy Sparks are 08:50 - 15:20.
Setting opening and closing times far outside these times if the school is not fully operational means that your school might look like it is managing its energy better than it actually is. This means that school comparisons will not work as well and advice generated for your school may not be appropriate.
If your school’s building is used by external users outside of school hours, this can be added as a community use time. Adding this can help to get an idea of how much energy is used to power and heat the school during these periods. You might want to communicate with community users of your school about saving energy, or check how much you are spending on energy during these times.
If you are a school admin, you can change your school opening hours and community use times by clicking on Manage school and selecting Edit school times.
Causes of out of hours usage
High out-of-hours electricity use in schools can be caused by the following equipment left running overnight, at weekends, and during the school holidays:
- Electric heaters and air conditioning
- Electric immersion heaters in water tanks
- Point of use electric water heaters
- Hot drink boilers
- Water chillers
- Photocopiers and printers
- Computers, iPad and laptop chargers, smart boards, and projectors
- Music technology equipment
- Design technology equipment
- Extraction fans and fume cupboards
- Air purifiers introduced as Covid mitigation
What you should do
- Make sure you switch off lights and electrical equipment on a daily basis. Use a sticker system to empower pupils to turn off lights and equipment. Green stickers mean pupils can switch off. Amber means to ask a teacher first. Red means only adults can switch off.
- Use our switch-off checklists before the holidays:
- Use appliance monitors to understand the energy use of electrical equipment.
- Install timers on photocopiers and printers so they automatically switch off at the end of the day.
- Install timers on electric room and water heaters to make sure they are not left running overnight, at the weekend and in the holidays.