With school budget cuts looming, no headteacher would knowingly turn down a windfall of up to £30,000. Yet that is a conservative estimate of how much money is being wasted in many classrooms through the inefficient use of computers.
Just switching off equipment when not in use contributed a large part of the £12,000 annual energy savings at Glebelands, a medium-sized secondary school in Cranleigh, Surrey.
Savings can run to much more in the largest schools. Programming the servers to power down computers when they are not in use is reducing the energy bill by a staggering £30,000 a year at the 2,200-pupil Thomas Deacon academy in Peterborough. The school claims it has saved a further £25,000 by changing from traditional computers to "thin client" machines from Wyse that have a monitor and keyboard but no hard drive. Processing is done on a central server which serves the "thin" terminals.
The figures are impressive but the energy-saving initiatives are not being driven solely by an economic imperative. Kingswood, an independent school in Bath, has switched to Eco-quiet computers from ICT supplier RM - a pioneer in the use of low- energy PCs in schools. The PCs use two-thirds less energy than traditional desktop PCs. To make even more savings, Kingswood pupils have formed an eco-group to chivvy each other and their teachers into cutting carbon emissions by switching off IT equipment and using heating more efficiently. Computers in the main ICT suites are programmed to shut down automatically in the evening.
"Computers are very much part of our world but we can't destroy the planet and leave nothing for our children," says Kingswood pupil Tamsin Ireland, 14.
All schools will be expected to take measures to reduce energy use this year as the government launches a major campaign to cut carbon emissions.
Smart monitors giving real time digital information about energy use will arrive in schools this month in a £12m initiative funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Announcing the campaign last November, children's secretary Ed Balls said that research by the Carbon Trust, a government-funded company promoting low-carbon emissions, showed use of smart meters and other changes could cut fuel bills by 10-15% .
According to Stan Terry, an environment and leadership consultant and author of The Green School, most schools do not think about the cost of running ICT equipment because energy expenditure is not split up into the different areas of use. After heating costs, running technology is likely to be the second biggest drain on resources, he says.
Forward thinking
"The average secondary school has 400 desktops which go on in the morning and stay on all day, and sometimes all night as well. Go into schools and you will see data projectors left on all day and they generate huge amounts of heat. The cost of IT is not devolved to different departments - why switch things off when someone else is paying the bills?"
Kingswood's head of ICT, Shaun Snowden, says buying the Eco-quiets has saved thousands of pounds in energy and provided a much better working environment because they generate less heat and noise.
"We estimate that each computer will save around £230 over four or five years and make a significant reduction in the school's carbon emissions," he says.
For a large school such as the Thomas Deacon academy where the student to computer ratio is 2:1, savings can be huge. Martin Byford-Rew, the academy's ICT manager, says thin client computers use around a third of the power of a normal desktop computer. And as most of the processing is done in the server room, the school has also cut down on the cost of technical support. Controls over printing have reduced the annual printing bill from £70,000 to less than £50,000.
The growing interest in sustainability is reflected in a clear increase in the number of exhibitors at this year's Bett show who are actively promoting it, according to show organiser Emap Connect.
Companies emphasising their green credentials explicitly include Innovit, a managed services specialist, which is offering schools a chance to sign up to a green audit to help save energy and cut carbon emissions. Thin-client technology itself is the subject of a Bett seminar, while a Building Schools for the Future seminar will examine how technologies such as "cloud computing" can contribute to environmentally-friendly innovation in new schools.
Green ICT can bring unexpected rewards, says Nikki Knight, head of Glebelands. "Students have led the campaign to encourage the adults to change their habits and as a result we have made significant savings and our energy bill has been reduced by 25%. Achieving greater awareness of sustainability has reduced bad behaviour and can raise attainment. The fact that the students are so involved has helped them to form different, more positive relationships with teachers."
Weblinks
Emap Connect: emap.com/divisions/connect
Innovit (Bett stand F116): innovit.co.uk
RM (C60/D60): rm.com
Wyse Technology (D160): wyse.co.uk
