Mounting pressure on already tight budgets has prompted many educational establishments to look for additional savings. One way to cut costs is to upgrade school heating systems, which has added environmental benefits
The UK’s education sector faces a severe funding crisis, with spending per pupil in 2024-25 expected to be 3% lower than in 2010, according to research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The situation in post-16 education is even worse, with the IFS reporting that college funding per pupil in 2024-25 is 10% below 2010-11 levels, while school sixth form funding per pupil will be an alarming 23% below.
There are, of course, a variety of complex reasons for the financial squeeze on education. Still, one of the most pressing is energy prices, with the biggest section of a school’s energy bill likely to be accounted for by heating.
School heating systems cost £543m annually
UK schools are estimated to account for more than half of a typical local authority’s carbon emissions, so they play a pivotal role in cutting the public sector’s costs and slashing carbon emissions.
The Carbon Trust has estimated that UK schools spend £543 million annually on their heating systems. And the average primary school in the UK spends £31,000 each year on energy bills, according to the financial website www.businesselectricityprices.org.uk.
This figure, it says, increases to £90,000 for secondary schools.
One Finance Manager told The Guardian newspaper that a secondary school in her trust had seen its energy bill jump from £75,000 to a staggering £213,000 in a year.
But funding problems are not the only reason for the education sector to take its heating requirements seriously.
Environmental concerns are also critically important as the world faces the often-appalling impact of global heating systems.
Schools are estimated to account for around 2% of UK greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to a whopping 15% of the country’s public sector emissions.
Sustainability & climate change in education
In response to this, the Department for Education has developed a sustainability and climate change strategy for education that states: “By 2025, all education settings [including early years settings, schools, multi- academy trusts, colleges, and universities] will have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan.”
A crucial element of boosting sustainability is managing energy, particularly the heating supply.
Heating can play a central role in helping to solve the twin problems of school funding and the urgent need to decarbonise educational facilities.
Ground & air source heat pump systems
One possible way to reduce costs and help the environment is to install heat pumps.
These tried and tested devices are significantly more efficient than traditional boilers and use cleaner electricity, so they will cut fuel bills and reduce a school’s carbon footprint.
Ground and air source heat pumps offer powerful advantages in terms of cost-savings and efficiencies.
Klima-Therm supports fossil-fuel upgrades and then provides ongoing servicing and maintenance contracts to ensure optimum efficiency and prevent operational downtime.
Recent examples include the installation of hybrid cooling and heating systems at Kingston College and Northbrook College, cutting-edge projects that use innovative technology.
Both examples feature simultaneous chilled and hot water for use in air conditioning, heating, and domestic hot water supplies.
Importance of maintenance in energy-saving technology
However, specifying state-of-the-art energy-saving technology is not the only way to save money.
Maintenance is also important. After all, even the best heating solution is useless if it fails to operate correctly, so effective installation and maintenance are critical.
The best way to ensure both is to work closely with a trustworthy supplier (see the box above).
Maintenance is vital to the smooth running of any business that operates machinery.
Effective preventative maintenance will cut running costs and reduce the likelihood of potentially expensive breakdowns.
It can also extend the lifetime of your equipment and provide peace of mind that you are doing everything you can to keep your process running and downtime at a minimum.
Our sister business, LH-plc, provides a comprehensive range of services that support chiller maintenance, including fault finding, commissioning & decommissioning, refurbishment & repair, and specialist maintenance.
And the company has a long, distinguished history of helping educational establishments with their maintenance needs.
Indeed, we are proud to be a preferred heat pump and chiller servicing and maintenance supplier for educational establishments in the Southeast.
It has recently become a member of Sky Blue Education, which connects private and academy schools with businesses to meet all their procurement needs.
Contact Klima-Therm to discover how the company can help you to support your clients in their missions to become more sustainable.
How Klima-Therm can support you
Klima-Therm can help consultants advise schools to meet their sustainability goals and reduce their outgoings by upgrading old and inefficient heating and cooling systems with the latest low-carbon solutions.
For existing HVAC systems, regular, planned maintenance ensures essential plant continues to operate at its optimum, preventing disruption, energy wastage, and associated costs.
Optimum temperature and air quality have been shown to be essential for teacher and pupil well-being, helping to facilitate the best learning conditions and enhancing productivity. Indeed, many organisations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, say that classroom temperatures can affect student performance.
Through its sister company, LH-plc, Klima-Therm can help create ideal conditions using the most efficient and cost-effective HVAC solutions.
Increasingly warm summers are leading many more schools to consider mechanical cooling. LH-plc supplies servicing and maintenance for chillers and other central cooling systems. Many of the latest heat pumps offer both functions for simultaneous heating and cooling.
We recommend that all our clients enter into a planned preventive maintenance (PPM) contract (a scheduled maintenance routine for HVAC assets). This is the best way to ensure operational certainty and cut the costs associated with off- plan callouts and repairs.
With plant checked at regular intervals, a PPM contract can provide schools peace of mind, reducing the risk of expensive repairs, breakdowns and inflated fuel bills caused by inefficient systems. Well-maintained HVAC and associated equipment will also last longer, contributing positively to whole-life costing.
