Customer
Queen’s College is one of the leading coeducational boarding and day schools in the South West of England. It is one of the few independent schools offering continuity of education for both boys and girls from the ages of 3 to 18 years, within the same grounds. At present there are 750 pupils, of which a third are boarders.
Objective
Queen’s College needed to reduce its heating costs, in the light of repeated increases in gas prices, despite shopping around for the best available contract price at each annual contract renewal.
Estates Manager Tim Starling explains, “Energy cost increases forced us to Seek ways in which we could achieve significant physical reductions in consumption without adversely affecting working conditions for both pupils and staff and ensuring continual hot water provision.”
The College has a diverse range of boilers, both old and new, operating across the various school buildings, ranging from small domestic size boilers to powerful multi boiler systems with large Outputs.
Tim added “We had to make efficiencies using existing boiler plant within a limited budget that would give us a short, cost effective payback period.”
Solution
Queen’s College took up a free diagnostic survey of its various heating systems followed by a detailed report recommending the installing of Energy Management Controls. Compatible with boilers fired by natural gas, LPG or oil the controls could be tailored to monitor and manage Queen’s College’s heating requirements intelligently, without disruption to or replacement of the existing boilers or pipework.
The school accepted the recommendations and a range of boiler management controls were installed to manage the carious heating systems.
Result
“We soon noticed an improvement in internal working conditions across the site,” commented Tim, “But it was the savings that were really impressive. Following a thorough comparative analysis of gas consumption over a sustained period, taking into account weather fluctuations, we achieved a saving in heat gas consumption of 22%.”
Based on the school’s gas price that equated to a saving of £18,077 per annum. Furthermore the systems installed paid for themselves in less than 18 months.
Tim concluded saying he was delighted with the savings and “We recommend that other schools take up their offer of a free survey and report. Their proposals are supported by a money back guarantee, so there is nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain.”