The Pau Casals school in Montmeló joins the 50/50 energy saving project

 

SOSTENIBLE

25-11-2010

 

Sostenible visited the Pau Casals school in Montmeló, Vallès Oriental county, to learn at first hand how the centre is taking part in the Euronet 50/50 project, whose goal is to establish a European network of schools committed to saving energy and combating climate change. Thirteen schools in Barcelona province are currently involved in the project, which was launched in 2009 and will continue until 2012.

"Our job is to provide the classes with reference values. For example, when light intensity in a classroom is 340 lux, you don't need to turn the light on", says Emma Feliu. "What we want to do above all is raise awareness and persuade those with passive attitudes to change", adds Pau Torras.

Emma and Pau are, respectively, pupils in the 5th and 6th year at Pau Casals school in Montmeló who play an important role in the Euronet 50/50 project. They are both members of the school's energy team, a key instrument for raising awareness about the need for energy saving and preparing the guidelines for the future action plan. This action plan, which will be introduced at a later date, will establish a series of specific measures. The energy team is formed by 16 pupils from different courses, and by representatives from the local authority, the school and parents, as well as the dining room manager and the school caretaker. As part of the team, then, people of different ages and with different links to the school have taken on responsibilities, each at the appropriate level for them.

Aim: to get everyone involved
One challenge presented by the Euronet 50/50 project is to get the whole educational community and everyone who works at schools, such as cleaners and caretakers, involved in energy saving. The caretaker is a particularly important figure, as his/her work entails day-to-day energy management, such as deciding whether to turn on all the lights at once in the morning, or to do so gradually, an option that has substantial positive effects on consumption in the long term.

However, obviously, pupils form the largest community at schools. This is also a very important group due to their capacity for learning and potential for the future. "We devote the extra hour's schooling recently introduced to the environment, and take the chance to talk about the 50/50 project", says Carmen Alfaro, Euronet 50/50 coordinator at Pau Casals school. Work concentrates particularly on measurement, she explains: "the children learn to use a luxometer to measure light intensity and a digital thermometer to record temperatures. By doing this repeatedly, they learn to understand the difference between the subjective feeling of being hot and heat as a reference value for deciding whether or not to turn on the heating".

This is an empirical approach that serves as an excellent complement to theory. As a result, pupils like Emma and Pau acquire practical learning that they can then use in class to spread the ideas behind the project. The age range is, of course, very wide, but the idea is to make things as comprehensible as possible according to level. "A child in infant Class 3 can understand that if it is cold we need to close the window and turn on the heating and that if it is not cold then it is not necessary", points out Alfaro. The Euronet 50/50 coordinator at Pau Casals notes that: "the challenge is for everyone to feel involved, even if the reasons for acting are assimilated only gradually. That way, by the time they reach the 5th or 6th course in secondary education, they will understand many things, as they will have built up a body of knowledge. A pupil who has received this training in energy management will always know more about it than someone in the same class who has not".

The action plan. Why?
Over the period from May 2009 to May 2012, the schools involved in the Euronet 50/50 project (centres in Finland, Portugal, Hungary, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Greece and Slovenia) will identify all the elements that intervene in energy efficiency and saving in the building ready to introduce an action plan, which will finally be assessed. The idea is that 50% of the energy savings achieved in the school will return to the centre as funding for projects, whilst the other 50% will be a net saving for the public administration. That is the 50/50 concept, established in Hamburg in 1994, and which enables everyone to benefit whilst contributing to the fight against climate change.

However, Carmen Alfaro is not thinking of the final stages yet. Right now, she is engaged in drawing up the action plan, which must be completed over the 2010-2011 academic year. When Sostenible visited the school, an external energy audit containing a series of recommendations aimed at energy saving had just been presented. Of the eleven proposals, only four entail economic cost. The rest have zero costs, as they are based on acquiring certain habits, such as ventilating rooms only for the time strictly necessary and unplugging electrical equipment, amongst others. The school's energy team will adopt this list of recommendations, and all will be included in the action plan.

Priorities
Some measures have already been implemented, however. For instance, posters will soon appear all around the school reminding everyone to be careful about windows, radiators, doors, lights, etc. The Pau Casals project coordinator is clear about the priorities: "in the short term, we need to sectorise lighting and, later on, heating".

These initiatives are crucial, as they will enable lighting and heating to be adapted to the particular characteristics of each different area. For example, in the case of light, and in the same classroom, the lux count in the rows near the windows may be high enough to make artificial lighting unnecessary, whilst it may be necessary to turn on lights in rows further away from windows. In order to provide an appropriate solution to such situations, it is necessary to sectorise fluorescent lights. Moreover, as the audit also made clear, daylighting is one of the building's strong points, as there is a magnificent skylight right at the school entrance.

An environmental innovation project was implemented at Pau Casals school over the 2006-2007 academic year with the aim of involving pupils in water saving measures. An environmental team was set up to compile ideas that could be put into practice by the school and, where this was not possible, by the local authority. "We contacted the mayor, who agreed with our proposals, and we started to work together with him, the councillor for the environment and municipal officials", explains Carmen Alfaro. Later, the chance of taking part in Euronet 50/50 came up, and the local authority encouraged the school to make the application. "The council promised support, and they were as good as their word", says the project coordinator.

Satisfactory results
Núria Gabernet, from Barcelona Provincial Council's Technical Office for Environmental Awareness, Participation and Dissemination, feels that the way Euronet 50/50 is being implement is highly positive, because, as she puts it, "local authorities and schools are getting involved, with schools following all the steps established under the project".

Whilst the initial aim was to find a minimum of 50 schools to join the network, there are now 55 centres actively engaged in the project in the different countries. Plans have been made to extend the Euronet 50/50 network further in 2011, contributing to climate change mitigation through simple measures based, in the main, on changing the users' habits through education and carrying out minor works in buildings. Regarding Barcelona province, Gabernet emphasises particularly "the degree to which both teachers and pupils have got involved". Moreover, she says, "many pupils joined in with the project last year, and they are even more aware this year about the need to improve energy efficiency at schools".

What happens next?
One of the objectives of Euronet 50/50 is to disseminate the energy efficiency measures implemented at different schools both internally and externally (homes, local authority services and facilities). Carmen Alfaro feels that the philosophy behind the project goes beyond specific measures: "we are training citizens to influence collective behaviour when with their families." The 50/50 project coordinator at Pau Casals schools will be satisfied "if the children transmit their new awareness to their home environments". After 2012, she hopes that "everything we have learned during this period will become a natural part of day-to-day activity at the school".