Energy and carbon management

Nottinghamshire County Council’s energy and carbon management team provides a comprehensive energy management service to schools and other County Council buildings. The team works to reduce the cost of energy, cut carbon emissions and ensure compliance with energy-related legislation.

Energy services for schools

We are committed to helping schools with their own energy management. In total, energy use in our schools for things like heating, lighting, cooking, IT and other electrical equipment  accounts for about 70% of the Council’s carbon emissions resulting from energy use in its buildings. This energy use currently costs schools a combined sum of around £10million. We help schools by enabling them to buy through our energy supply contracts, assisting them with billing queries, helping them identify and reduce energy waste, providing interest-free loans for quick payback energy efficiency measures and giving support and advice to encourage use of renewable energy.

Energy procurement

The energy and carbon management team arranges and manages contracts for the supply of electricity, gas and wood pellets to County Council sites, including County schools and Academies. Through these arrangements, sites get the benefit of economies of scale and contract expertise geared to maximising value for money and quality service. The contract for wood pellet supply is available to any public sector bodies within Nottinghamshire.

Saving energy

Saving energy should be part of everyone’s thinking and behaviour. Energy is a precious and increasingly costly resource, still largely created using non-renewable resources, so-called fossil fuels, the burning of which is responsible for a range of harmful emissions, including those responsible for global warming. To help Council sites save energy we can identify energy saving opportunities and provide interest free loans to install quick pay back energy efficiency measures through our Local Authority Energy Finance scheme (LAEF). Among our resources is a simple energy survey questionnaire that can be used by non energy experts to identify opportunities for investment in quick pay back measures.

Read a case study on Sutton Centre Community College, who have recently benefitted from an LAEF loan.

The recent installation of automatic meter reading across many of our sites, combined with use of our energy management system means that not only do we get more accurate billing but we can monitor energy consumption on a half hourly basis, which can reveal significant opportunities to cut waste and improve efficiency. With our energy management system we are able to give sites their own log in to explore their own consumption patterns. An excellent resource is available to support sites with interpreting these patterns and using them to identify energy saving opportunities.

Getting the benefit from Automatic Meter Reading (AMR)

Saving energy in the home

If you are interested in saving energy (and money) in your home, please visit www.everybodys-talking.org/take-action-save-money.

Here you can find details of the latest home insulation offers and other practical steps you can take to save energy and money.

Nottinghamshire Switch 'n' Save

Pool your buying power with others through our Switch 'n' Save scheme and save up to £200 off your energy bills.