Highland Council puts forward controversial energy cost-cutting proposal

Under a controversial proposal drawn up by Highland Council’s administration, all council buildings – including schools – should be shut down for half day on Fridays in order to cut energy use. The scheme could save around £8 million and could become effective next year.

Council sources says £3.9 million would be saved by closing all council buildings earlier in the week, reducing cleaning, heating and other costs.

And a further £4.1 million would be saved by shutting schools half day on a Friday, in a move that could effectively cut teaching time for primary school pupils by 2.5 hours-per-week.

One councillor involved in the plan said:”The reality is that on Friday afternoons there’s hardly anybody left in the buildings anyway so it means we are heating the buildings so by shutting them that bit early we would be making a huge, huge saving.”

HeatingSave – high-performance BEMS with monitoring features guaranteed to deliver quick ROI

While closing the buildings altogether would certainly help drive down costs, implementing a very solid and reliable energy management system that optimizes the heating system’s functionality would allow the local authorities to attain potentially higher energy savings, while in the same time keeping the buildings in use.

HeatingSaveBuilding Energy Management Systems are capable of delivering extensive monitoring and control options, compared to basic controls. They typically employ data from a variety of sources (boiler flow and return sensors, internal and external temperature sensors, occupancy sensors, humidity sensors, etc.), and enable the perfect optimization of a building’s boiler-based central heating system.

Our Energy Monitor connects to a HeatingSave energy management system to give you the ability to view your current energy usage. Additionally, it show the amount of CO2 associated with this energy usage, all on a very easy to use monitor touch screen. Always keep up-to-date on what’s going on with your energy system, where you are using the most energy and where you are spending the most money.

Attractive design presents the data in a smart manner using metering graphs and modern graphics.

Compare your current level of usage with past data, e.g. compare today’s data with yesterdays, or even last year’s usage data. Accurately see how much energy is currently being used, how much CO2 is being produced and most importantly, how much it is costing you. The Energy Monitor is updated in real-time so you can see energy changes instantly and keep on top of your usage with ease.