Daniel Crowe of the Renewable Energy Association (REA) reviews the range of energy generation systems that schools can install.

The REA is the UK’s largest renewable energy trade association, with over 400 company members. We are active across all sectors and technologies within the UK’s renewable energy industry, including large and small scale electricity, heat and transport biofuels.

A significant proportion of our members manufacture, supply, install and maintain small scale renewable energy generation equipment, of which all are suitable for use in public buildings such as schools.

Installing onsite renewable energy generation equipment at a school is a tangible and visible commitment to making the school more environmentally sustainable, by reducing the use of power and heat from polluting, finite resources.

It also has many side benefits as an educational tool for pupils, as a demonstration of renewable energy technology to the local community and is a way of cutting day to day energy costs for the school.
There are a number of technologies that can be installed in the school environment, to provide renewable heat or electricity. There are examples of all these technologies, and the environmental, education and financial benefits they can provide, already in operation in the UK.

Solar PV

Solar photovoltaic systems (PV) turn daylight into electricity. While most effective with direct sunlight, PV systems are still viable right across the UK. Installing a PV system is a low maintenance, non-intrusive way of integrating renewable energy generating equipment into a building. Solar PV is most commonly installed in flat panel form, but can also be integrated into glass, building fabric and even roof tiles.

As one of over 40 schools in N. Ireland with solar PV, Fivemiletown High School has recently benefited from the installation of an innovative system combining solarcentury’s ‘solar glazing’, and solar roof panels, with a capacity of around 30kW. 65% funded by Government grants, the installation could save the school around £2000 a year on electricity, and reduce CO2 emissions by up to 14 tonnes.

The students are also benefiting from a valuable educational tool, enhanced by electronic displays indicating the amount of electricity being generated by the system.

Wind power

Wind turbines are a growingly common sight in the UK, and this includes schools! The impressive, visual nature of a wind turbine makes it an ideal installation at a school, particularly in exposed locations. A major strength to wind power is that it has the potential to work 24 hours a day (wind depending!), and is likely to be most effective during the windier, colder months, when electricity demand is also highest.
Harlington Community School in west London is home to two 9m tall, 6kW Proven wind turbines, as well as a small solar PV array. Supported by local and national government and energy supplier grants, the combined installation will save the school around £2000 a year.

Biomass heat and power

A school of any size can be adapted to biomass heating, such as boilers which burn wood chips or pellets. This form of renewable heating can usually be integrated directly into the existing central heating network, and is normally the most cost effective way of reducing energy costs and carbon emissions from a school. This is particularly where the school is currently heated with an expensive and/or high carbon fuel such as electricity, LPG, coal or heating oil, where wood chips and pellets are highly cost competitive.

Nottinghamshire Council’s Wood Heat Project, which replaces and converts aging coal fired boilers, has so far resulted in 18 wood fuel boilers in 15 schools. Fuelled by locally sourced wood pellet fuel, the schools across the county have reduced their carbon emissions by 3000 tonnes/ year (11,000 tonnes CO2). Following a successful Bioenergy Capital Grant application, a further 27 boiler replacements/ conversions are planned.

Another example is Harper Adams University College in Shropshire, now heated and powered by a Talbott’s biomass combined heat and power unit. The college’s student residences’ heating and hot water are provided by the wood fuelled boiler, and the electricity generated provides an additional income stream for the university.

Heat pumps

Running on electricity, a heat pump extracts and concentrates heat from the ground, air or water. Similar to the way a fridge removes heat from inside and expels it through elements on the reverse, a heat pump captures the ‘low grade’ heat present in the environment, and concentrates it into water to be used in a space heating system. A heat pump is by far the most efficient way of heating a building using electricity, as around three times more energy is gained than consumed by the process.

Buntingsdale in Shropshire, a small Primary school, has installed a ground source heat pump system to replace aging electric night storage heating. Extracting energy from 3km of pipes buried in an adjacent field, the school saves at least £200 and 2 tonnes of CO2 emissions per month during the winter, by using 70% less electricity for heating.

Solar thermal

By far the most common form of small scale renewable energy generation, solar thermal heating is already warming water for cooking, bathing and swimming purposes right across the UK.

At Brill Primary School, Bucks, Riomay has installed a solar thermal heating system to warm the swimming pool during the summer months, and provide hot water for the kitchen all year round. This is estimated to save this small school at least £800 /year on oil bills. This school is an exemplar for renewable energy, also making use of solar PV, wind power and a ground source heat pump.

Renewable Energy Assurance Scheme (REAL)

The REA administers the REAL Assurance Scheme, which is a Code of Practice that ensures non expert consumers of microgeneration equipment, such as householders and schools, are provided with an excellent service. Members of the scheme are listed on www.realassurance.org.uk

Low Carbon Buildings Programme

The Government has recognised the potentially important role of schools and other public buildings in the demonstration of small scale renewable energy generation technologies, and has recently dedicated around £50m for grants to subsidise their installation in these buildings.

Some useful links:
Renewable energy kit
DTI Its only natural for schools for grant eligible suppliers

For further information please visit our website www.r-e-a.net or call 0207 747 1830

There are various grants available at different times and in different areas, as well as ongoing national grants, for the installation of any of the above systems. Contact your nearest installer who will be able to advise you of what is available.