Shirley Warren Primary School has been given £1,300 worth of technical equipment from Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) to support its computer studies programme. This follows the completion of SSEN's award-winning project, Solent Achieving Value from Efficiency (SAVE), that demonstrated how communities can benefit from actively participating in the energy system that serves them.
Funded through Ofgem, SSEN's Solent Achieving Value from Efficiency (SAVE), fused smart technologies with customer interaction across 8,000 Solent homes during a five-year long energy efficiency programme. Throughout the project, SAVE focused on four different interventions with its participating customers and addressed energy efficiency, education, monetary incentives and community engagement, which local residents say has helped improved their lives and local community.
With the project now concluded, SSEN has looked to continue the legacy and learning from the five-year scheme and as a result has gifted £1,300 worth of technical equipment, in the form of nine Sphero Bolts - to Shirley Warren Primary School to help enhance its computing curriculum. The Sphero Bolts were identified by the school as being hugely beneficial to their existing studies, as they provide pupils with the opportunity to be more creative while learning through the system's coding and gaming options.
Charlie Edwards, SSEN's SAVE Project Manager said: "Throughout the SAVE project, our team - led by project partners Neighbourhood Economics - worked closely with the residents of Shirley Warren and during this time the changes they made to their lives and the community around them were clear to see, and will make a positive impact for many years to come."
"The project ran from 2014-2019, over which time it focused on how it could improve the lives of more vulnerable customers while still reducing carbon emissions and the ongoing benefits are already feeding into the next generation. We wanted to help them progress that upward cycle and it's been our pleasure to work with the community again through Shirley Warren Primary School."
"We might even see some of the pupils here involved in shaping our energy industry in the not too distant future."
Head Teacher of Shirley Warren Primary School, Mrs Mann, added: "We are proud to educate our children, to shape and encourage changes that will improve our local environment and encourage them to be part of a greener community, that is why the SAVE project is so important to us."
"We are very grateful to have received nine Sphero Bolts as a result of this project; they will really help to enrich our curriculum and provide our children with another means of accessing technology."
The SAVE project aimed to establish to what extent energy efficiency measures can be considered as a cost effective, predictable and sustainable tool for managing peak demand as an alternative to network reinforcement. The project targeted domestic customers only and measures trialled included deploying technology (in the form of an LED bulb roll-out), offering price incentives and taking innovative approaches to customer engagement, which included building on techniques developed initially by the governments 'nudge' department.
By monitoring the impact of energy efficiency, education, monetary incentives and community engagement with those participating in the SAVE project, SSEN has been able to develop a model for investment that minimises electricity costs for customers while providing network solutions to maximise societal benefits.
Key findings from the SAVE project show that if the scheme was rolled out to all 3.8 million SSEN customers, the positive effect on the environment would be the equivalent of removing 28,000 cars from the UK's roads, and could reduce the annual electricity consumption of UK households by 2.5 million MWh per year.
Through the SAVE project and its findings SSEN has developed a Network Investment Tool, designed as a forward-looking tool, with a Distribution System Operator (DSO) in mind. This provides the means to assess and select a cost-effcient methodology for managing electricity distribution network constraints.
To find out more about SAVE, please go to www.save-project.co.uk and read the project findings in full here.