A lighting upgrade delivered a brighter learning environment for pupils and lower energy bills for the school.

Emerson Valley school is a larger than average, four-form entry junior school in Milton Keynes, offering care and education to 432 pupils from ages 7 to 11. The school caters for children from a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, with 26 languages spoken within the school. Their aim is to create a positive climate for learning across the school, where the relationships between teachers and pupils, and their peers, are cordial, courteous and purposeful. Emerson Valley School acknowledges the challenging climate the children face during their lives and believe they have a moral purpose to make the world a better place, including the care of our planet. They conduct school litter picks and trips to the local recycling facility, where they teach children the importance of the 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle.

Emerson Valley is lucky to operate on a spacious site in relatively modern school buildings, however the school was originally built with fluorescent tube lighting which attracts higher energy bills as well as regular and costly maintenance. The lights in situ were emitting poor levels of light making the learning environment dark and dim. The school contacted Milton Keynes council to understand what help they could get upon hearing about other schools in the area upgrading to LED lighting. For such a large school, the opportunities to use government funding to upgrade their lighting with zero capital cost seemed too good to be true.

Emerson Valley’s electricity and maintenance bills were substantial, in order to alleviate pressure on their school budget, they were keen to explore ways in which they could reduce their costs. The school’s senior leadership team wanted to explore the opportunities for replacing the lighting with new LED lights which could improve the learning environment at the same time as reducing their energy and maintenance bills. Given the school’s awareness and eagerness to improve the wider environment in which their pupils will grow up in, the carbon footprint reduction that went hand in hand with the reduction of energy usage at the school was a treasured benefit of the project.

THE SOLUTION

Ineco Energy undertook a comprehensive lighting audit of the school and bespoke lighting design “designed for efficiency” to replace their existing lighting with new LED lighting. This approach improved the lighting levels across the school site to applicable standards whilst reducing the overall number of fittings by 20% to deliver the best possible business case!

As a Carbon Trust accredited supplier, Ineco Energy were able to help the school benefit from a £8,191 non-repayable capital contribution from the green business fund. The remainder of the project was delivered using interest free government funding which meant the school funded the project with no upfront capital cost required.

Good lighting is proven to foster a stimulating, welcoming learning environment and assist students in their academic development. Using high quality, energy efficient LED luminaires was essential with luminaires from Dextra Lighting specified to deliver the desired light levels, energy & carbon savings.

The complete turnkey installation included:

• Lighting Audit
• Bespoke lighting design
• Funding applications
• Project Management
• Health & Safety/CDM
• Installation
• Testing & Commissioning
• Handover documents and O&M Manuals
• WEEE Certified waste recycling
• Measurement & verification of pre- and post-energy consumption and light levels.

The Results:

• 79% lighting electricity saved
• £6,157 first year benefit
• £184,710 lifetime benefit
• 12,129kg carbon saved annually
• 303,231kg lifetime carbon saved