Staffordshire school saves over £18,750 a year on lighting costs with LED upgrade

Abbot Beyne is a large thriving secondary school in Burton upon Trent with two distinct sites.

The Staffordshire school has 800 students enrolled and was recently given a very positive review by Ofsted. The school manages 19 hectares overlooking the River Trent, with Years 7–9 predominantly based at the Evershed site and Years 11–13 based in the Linnell site.

The school wanted a better working environment for staff and pupils by improving the lighting throughout and was also determined to reduce both energy consumption and maintenance costs.

At the same time, Abbot Beyne wanted to contribute to efforts to help the environment by reducing its carbon footprint, through reduced consumption of lighting power.

SaveMoneyCutCarbon was asked by the school to carry out a full survey and make the business case for LED retrofit. The detailed preparatory work involved specialists to specify options for the suspended fittings.

The project was put out to tender and SaveMoneyCutCarbon won the contract on the basis of its exceptional experience in the education sector and pricing.

Working with the school management, SaveMoneyCutCarbon drew up detailed schedules for the installation team – all fully DBS checked – and then managed the installation throughout, ensuring minimum disruption.

As well as the LED lighting upgrade, the school took the opportunity to replace aged and inefficient hand dryers in both sites with eco models that reduced power consumption by up to 80.8%.

Salix application

SaveMoneyCutCarbon also successfully managed the Salix funding application process that provided an interest-free solution, with repayments covered by savings in energy costs.

The team fitted a total of 1,459 lights and fittings, including LED panels, LED linear battens, high bays, bulkheads and outdoor wall lights from trusted manufacturers such as Thorn, Ansell, Ledvance and Signify (Philips).

SaveMoneyCutCarbon works closely with top lighting companies because well manufactured LED lighting has a working life of 50,000 hours with little or no light degradation. Cheaper versions lack quality control, often meaning high failure rates and poor light quality.

The fluorescent tubes that were replaced typically have a lifespan of 8,000 hours and provide increasingly poor light quality as they age. The school was having to replace these regularly.

The long lifespan of LEDs not only reduces maintenance costs but also the amount of waste going to landfill.

Staff and pupils also benefit from quality LEDs being flicker-free, which provides much better conditions for working and learning, particularly for those prone to headaches or other symptoms which can be associated with poor lighting.

Hand dryers

In Linnell building, SaveMoneyCutCarbon replaced three 2600W, three 2200W and one 900W hand dryers with SMCC Eco Dryers that draw just 500W, with energy savings of between 44.4% and 80.8%. The school also opted to replace the three 2600W and two 900W hand dryers at the Evershed site with the SMCC Eco Dryers.