The intraday advice page gives a more detailed analysis of how your school’s electricity use varies throughout the day. Comparisons are made between your school and benchmark and exemplar schools as well as between this year and the previous year for school days, weekends and holidays.
School days
Overnight electricity consumption between 7:00 pm and 6:00 am should be relatively constant. There are a few reasons why there might be a small change during the night e.g. central heating boiler pumps sometimes running on cold nights in the winter (frost protection) but any significant change should be investigated as you might be able to save electricity and costs through fixing the problem.
During the day electricity power consumption rises rapidly and often peaks around midday.
See if you can spot some of the following typical characteristics in your data:
- Electricity consumption starting to increase from about 7:00 am when the school opens, and lights and computers are switched on rapidly increasing consumption. What time does your school open and who is first to arrive?
- It's often possible to use the electricity data to see when cleaners arrive at the school, in some schools it's in the morning before school opens, at others, it's in the evening after school closes. It's common for cleaners to switch all the school lights on; it's possible to save electricity by asking them to only turn the lights on in the rooms they are cleaning.
- The highest consumption is often around lunchtime when all the school lights and computers are switched on and school dinners are being prepared and served.
- After the school closes there should be a gradual reduction in electricity consumption as teachers leave and lights and computers are switched off.
- Sometimes there is a regular evening event that increases consumption.
If your school has high consumption overnight compared to benchmark schools, or consistently higher throughout the day, this could indicate that you need to reduce your baseload.
To find out more about what can cause a high baseload and how to reduce it, go to our
baseload advice page.
If consumption is mainly high during the middle of the day, this indicates you need to reduce your peak electricity use. A high peak electricity usage can be caused by:
- electric heaters, particularly if winter consumption is significantly higher than summer consumption
- inefficient appliances such as old IT servers, old photocopiers, or old fridges and freezers
- old-style fluorescent lighting
- few staff and pupils turning off lights and electrical appliances during the day
- high kitchen usage, including kitchen equipment left running unnecessarily
Use appliance monitors to measure the consumption of electrical equipment running during peak use. Use the information gathered to make a case for upgrading inefficient equipment (see an
example case study) or developing policies to make sure staff and pupils switch off lights and equipment after use.
Holidays
At most schools, electricity consumption should be relatively constant during the holidays, unless:
- The school is occupied during the holidays when consumption might increase during the day
- The school has solar panels which might cause consumption to drop during the middle of the day when the sun is out
- Electrical hot water heaters left on during the holidays causing peaks in consumption often in the morning, but sometimes throughout the day.
- The school has security lights which causes consumption to rise overnight when the sun goes down
High electricity use during the school holidays can be caused by the following equipment left running:
- Electric room heating including storage heaters. Don't forget to look in outbuildings and temporary classrooms which commonly have electric heating installed.
- Electric immersion heaters in water tanks in roofs and cupboards
- Point of use electric water heaters
- Hot drink boilers
- Water chillers
- Photocopiers and printers
- Computers, iPad and laptop chargers, smart boards, and projectors
- Any IT servers which are not needed during the holidays
- Music technology equipment
- Design technology equipment
- Fridges and freezers in the school kitchens, staff room, food technology rooms and laboratories. These should be emptied or the contents consolidated, and as many turned off as possible
- Extraction fans and fume cupboards
- Air purifiers introduced as Covid mitigation
Weekends
At most schools electricity consumption at the weekend should be relatively constant, unless:
- The school is occupied at the weekend when consumption might increase during the day
- The school has solar panels which might cause consumption to drop during the middle of the day when the sun is out
- Electrical hot water heaters left on during the holidays causing peaks in consumption often in the morning, but sometimes throughout the day.
- The school has security lights which causes consumption to rise overnight when the sun goes down.
What you should do
- Find out whether the school is used for extra activities over the holidays and weekends. This may cause more electricity to be used. If you are a school admin, you can add community or external use of the school to your Energy Sparks analysis by editing the community use times under Manage school - Edit school times. You can also try working with hirers to make sure they switch off lights and equipment at the end of their session.
- Find out whether the school has purchased new electrical equipment. Remember to check in offices and kitchens, as well as the classrooms. Use appliance monitors to understand the energy use of any new electrical equipment.
- Get your pupils to monitor and switch off lights and equipment left on at the end of the school day or during break times:
- Use our holiday switch-off checklists before the holidays: