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LED and Solar at Merebrook Infant School

 

Merebrook Infant School is a 129-pupil school catering for 4-7 year-olds in Milton Keynes. While it’s a small school, its positive impact on the planet has been significant.

 

Background

Priding themselves on achieving the Bronze Award for working towards being a sustainable and eco-friendly school, Merebrook Infant School is taking positive action to protect and preserve our planet. As well as educating the children on the use of multiple recycling bins, they grow their own fruit and vegetables before composting all subsequent waste.

The installation of solar panels formed part of their effort to be a greener school by accessing cleaner energy, while having the added benefit of saving them money on their electricity bills too.

By ineco | 11th December 2019

See the before and after at Merebrook:

Seamless design and installation process

Based in a modern school building, Merebrook Infant School has a perfectly orientated and angled roof to enable maximum efficiency from a relatively small solar PV system. A 109-panel installation was designed and installed following an extensive site audit. The entire system was installed over a weekend with the site cleared by Monday morning when the staff and pupils returned to school. With full project management and administration of the project completed by Ineco Energy, the school had little to worry about, yet a lot to gain.

No cost to the school

The system was entirely covered by DfE approved Salix Finance funding so it didn’t cost the school anything upfront or ongoing. Ineco Energy managed the finance application process to remove any administrative burden from the school.

The system now delivers a 52% saving on the school’s electricity bills, in the region of £4,000 each year, and saves almost seven tonnes of carbon emissions annually too.

Adding in more savings with a lighting upgrade

One year on, the school community at Merebrook was so impressed with the positive impact the solar panels had on their school, the leadership team returned to us to talk about the potential for a switch to an energy-efficient lighting system too.

Following a further detailed site audit, we designed a new lighting system that enabled them to reduce the number of fittings and switch to more suitable lighting types, while delivering a brighter light throughout the school and saving them a further 60% on their remaining electricity bill.

Results

Energy Savings

72%

Tonnes Carbon Savings

235

Financial Savings

£176,565