I can’t claim it’s a miracle but it was a little unexpected. We were in the school with a contractor assessing the requirements for HEI’s plans to change the whole school over to LED lighting. We had been puzzled, looking at the school’s annual electricity bill, at how much use there was on the night tariff, so Ted had asked the Council employee responsible for managing school maintenance contracts to come along. We were quite a long way through a detailed tour of the school stiff necked from staring up at the light fittings, when the Council employee quietly said that he could cover some of the cost from his budget. Well we didn’t expect that! This is a great start. One way or another we are going to make this happen. This will be either through grants, share offer or loan…or all three. It isn’t a cheap but it will save the school about 30% on it’s current electricity bill. The night use is from heaters on a timer in an adjoining school pre-fab building, by the way. We will have to look at that, I think.
It feels better to us in HEI to be doing something positive about carbon emissions, however small, than complain about what is not being done. The latter becomes overwhelmingly depressing if you look for positive political signs. There aren’t any – other than impassioned words in Paris.