Author: Nigel A-F

In last month’s ISBA bulletin we reminded readers aspiring to achieve zero-carbon status on their school estates that it is essential to complete any required conversions to estate heating systems before 31^st March 2021, if it is to be done affordably, because that’s the date that the UK Government subsidy regime that supports conversions to renewable heat closes for new entrants. (The subsidy is known as the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)).

In the past month, conversion momentum has picked up in the UK. One example of the extent of this is that some schools which are planning to get the bulk of the work done during the summer holiday have now pre-booked critical equipment, to ensure that it is available when they need it. This seems like a sensible precaution to take, as it would be a great pity if a school Governing Body committed to a conversion programme only to find that the required equipment was not available in the required timescale.

Another long-lead item causing concern for some schools is the requirement to get planning consent for the installation of the new system. Even though conversion to low/zero-carbon heat has clear environmental benefits, planning consent is still generally required. This will add a minimum of 8 weeks to any programme, and probably longer if the local planning authority has any queries about the detail of the programme.

The message remains that time is of the essence for conversions to low/zero-carbon heat systems, if they are to be achieved affordably: this applies equally to schools on mains gas, LPG or oil.

N.B. The Bursar’s Review issued on 4^th February contained a short leaflet from ReEnergise outlining a zero-carbon strategy for schools and informing readers about the establishment of a new Zero-Carbon Schools division in the company. Please not that the webpage included in the leaflet should read www.zerocarbonschools.com rather than ‘.co.uk’.

 

October 2025: 

In this exclusive interview with Ali Frankley, who has been bursar of Fandangle Hall School since 2020, we learn that as well as doing all the other herculean tasks that form the typical lot of the bursar, she was recently awarded an MBE for making Fandangle Hall the first true zero-carbon school. (see the Autumn edition of BR).

BR. First of all, congratulations on the award. I expect you must be thrilled.

AF. Of course, but I enjoyed the journey and I earnestly believed in what we were trying to achieve at the school, which took a lot of the heartache out of the effort. Anyway, I know it sounds like a cliché, but it was definitely a team effort. Our estates team have put their heart and soul into it.

BR. So, for the benefit of the readers, could you just explain what you have done at the school.

AF. Yes; we’re now a designated net zero-carbon school estate. That means that none of our transport, power or heat usage on the estate generates any greenhouse gas emissions.

BR. And how does that manifest itself in practice? How does it affect the mechanics of operating the school?

AF. Well let’s start with the power, because that’s arguably the easiest bit. We are still using power from the national grid, but a lot less of it than we used to because we generate so much of our own power on the estate, courtesy of the usual technology – solar PV; but we’ve also got a small hydro generating system using the brook. And we ensure that all the grid power we do procure is 100% renewably sourced. The transport is all zero-carbon too. EVs. And it’s all part of an integrated system. Our mini buses, for example, are plugged into the school power circuit when not in use and they’re either taking a charge from the circuit when there is spare capacity from the solar or during the night when the grid rates are incredibly cheap; or they’re acting in their role as mobile batteries and selling power back to the grid when the grid needs it. It’s all automated. It saves a lot of money.

BR. And I understand that all the heating comes out of the ground. Is that right?

AF. We converted all our heating to ground source heat pumps back in 2020 when the government was sponsoring it so generously, in our case to the tune of over £3M. That subsidy basically covered the cost of the system with some room to spare. The heat pumps extract heat from the ground, boost the operating temperature via some clever technology which is best described as the refrigeration cycle in reverse, and then pass the heat to the distribution systems in the buildings – mainly normal radiators actually. We’ll be making a net profit from the system just as soon as we’ve settled the bank loan in 3 years time. It’s amazing really to think that we’ll actually be making money from heating the school.

BR. Does that work? The technology I mean? I’ve got a neighbour who’s got one and he’s not happy.

AF. Well I won’t deny I was worried when we embarked on that project. But we visited several sites that had already been converted, to check it wasn’t a big white elephant. A clear pattern emerged: where the system had been carefully researched and specified, and obviously properly installed, then it worked as intended, even in listed buildings. But where it hadn’t been carefully specified it didn’t work so well.

BR. And I believe you’ve also had a big drive on enhancing the efficiency of the buildings in the past 5 years?

AF. Yes, that’s helped a lot, as you’d expect. Plus we’ve done the same with the occupants. Everybody is energy and waste conscious now and we run a continuous campaign in that respect.

BR. What gave you the idea to do all this? Did it come from you or were you directed to do it by the governors?

AF. It all started with a piece of chocolate, funnily enough. I’d done a fair amount of my own reading around the issue of climate change and sustainability before I joined the school, back in the spring term of 2020. I’d been determined to make a difference as soon as I arrived, but I’d pretty quickly realised that it would not be so easy. For one thing, I hadn’t realised how little spare time I’d have to achieve anything other than maintaining steady state operations. But there was also no real focus on sustainability in the school. So I was on the verge of putting it off for at least a year when a letter arrived with some chocolate in it. It explained in very plain terms that we had about a year to get our heating converted otherwise we’d miss out on the subsidy that was designed to make it all affordable. I took that to heart, discussed it with my chairman, John Reese-Noble, and we agreed we should find a way to get it done – if we could do it without wrecking anything else. The chocolate wielding company turned out to be very helpful in guiding us through the maze of technologies and installers and now it’s all done.

BR. What were the biggest hurdles?

AF. Lack of time to focus on it, probably, but I gradually learned to delegate as much as I could; and I insisted that we did not skimp on project management effort. So many pitfalls were avoided because I had a company that I trusted working alongside me. They were adept at pointing out in advance what could go wrong. They took on a lot of the intellectual and organisational effort, and anyway, my own team didn’t have any spare capacity, nor the specialist knowledge required. The other challenge was bringing the senior leadership team along in a timely manner. Just think: one moment the budget and plan for the next 5 years were pretty much settled; the next moment we decided we had to find space for a programme of work stretching into the £millions – although not as much as our new builds, I hasten to add. And it wasn’t exactly glamorous stuff on the face of it. Governing bodies and academic staff don’t normally get fired up by heating plant or solar farms. But I let John take the lead on the internal hearts and minds campaign and he was very good at it. His catch-phrase is that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and it’s true.

BR. And I suppose the changing mood amongst the public helped?

AF. Yes. 2020 was the year that the national mood seemed to change. Parents started asking us what we were doing about sustainability and this inevitably had an impact on the priority. It was our marketing team, actually, that were the keenest on it. It was their idea, for example, to plaster our green credentials all over the side of our minibuses. People notice when our minibuses turn up at fixtures, especially now that we’ve got the zero-carbon status in big bold letters on the sides.

BR. Were there times when you wanted to give up?

AF. 2020 was a tricky year, because we had to get the main heat project finished or we’d have lost out on the government money. I definitely put my own neck on the line there, but I’m so glad I did. I’d hate to be one of those schools that are having to do the conversion now as the Building Regs gradually tighten up and the subsidies have all but stopped. Basically it’s now stick instead of carrot and I know that some of my colleagues in other schools are finding it a struggle financially. The regs seem quite innocuous on the face of it, but when you suddenly discover that you can’t replace a system in the older buildings with the same technology as you had before, it turns what was an affordable routine job into a serious cash headache. And let’s face it, nobody is going to have much sympathy for a struggling school in the independent sector these days.

BR. What would your advice to other bursars be?

AF. Three things. Thing One: have the courage of your own convictions and if you can see that something needs to be done but it’s not the flavour of the month amongst the school leadership, keep plugging away. People will come round in the end, provided that you are diligent about the business case, especially once you’ve got an ally or two in the right places. Thing two: make sure you follow a methodical step-by-step risk reduction process for each project. If you don’t do that, things are more likely to go wrong. Thing Three: you get what you pay for. If I’d tried to do all this on my own, it would never have worked. It was well worth having the additional support.

BR. Final word?

AF. Don’t ignore the chocolate. You never know where it may lead you.

BR. Ha ha. Thank you very much Ali.

A Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system is a small power plant that captures the waste heat produced whilst it’s generating electricity and makes it available as useful heat: hence the name – it gives you usable heat and power; and it does come more or less ‘in a box’, funnily enough. The supermarket equivalent would be ‘buy one get one at half price’. We call it ‘the box that saves money’.

The reason for the financial benefit is that grid electricity is so much more expensive per unit than mains gas (known in the trade as the spark spread).

Put in £2 worth of gas in a CHP and get out a £1 worth of heat and £3 worth of electricity, and reduce your emissions by up to 30%. Isn’t this the best-kept secret in the energy industry?

 

How Does a CHP Work?

A CHP system uses gas to power a boiler. The resultant high heat drives a generator to produce electricity. The remaining heat, which would otherwise be wasted, is used for local heating. This makes it much more energy-efficient than conventional heat or electricity production.

How Big Is a CHP System?

Like conventional heating plant, it comes in a range of sizes to serve a wide variety of heat and power requirements. A CHP suitable for a typical school requirement is only about a meter cubed in volume and would normally be installed in an existing plant room. Key point – it would augment rather than replace existing boilers (which would therefore work less hard and could be resized appropriately on replacement).

What Is the Ideal Source of Energy for a CHP System?

The ideal source of energy is mains gas. To gain the full benefit, all the heat and power generated needs to be used on site, so correct sizing is essential. Generally, there should be plenty of conventional uses for the electricity already (e.g. lighting and IT), but the CHP could also be used in conjunction with electric vehicle (EV) charging or battery storage; or even in combination with a heat pump.

How Much Does a CHP System Cost?

Cost-effectiveness is always site and usage dependent, but a typical school application – e.g. serving a sports hall with a swimming pool – would be less than £100,000. This would pay for itself in 3 to 5 years, depending on heat usage and the school’s gas and electricity rates. The life of the system could then be up to 15 years, making the net benefit (benefit minus costs) between 2 and 3 times the original capital outlay. Note that at this sort of scale it counts in VAT terms as an energy-saving material and therefore can be eligible for the reduced rate of VAT.

It seems curious that more schools have not taken advantage of this option. If you would like to know more, get in touch.

What Is a Ground Source Heat Pump?

A ground source heat pump (GSHP) is a system of heating, or cooling, using the heat from the ground. It is made out of a series of pipes buried underground, which transfer the heat from the earth into your home.

How Does a GSHP Work?

Below the surface layer, the ground remains at a constant temperature of about 12 degrees Centigrade all year round. A GSHP system makes use of this consistent temperature by extracting heat and enhancing it to provide hot water for heating infrastructure.

For large GSHP systems it is normal to sink a number of boreholes (the ground array), which can be 200-250m deep; or use horizontal trenching if there is space on the estate.

A fluid is circulated in continuous pipes within these boreholes to absorb the ground heat. The collected heat is then transferred from the fluid to a refrigerant running through the heat pump.

The heat pump acts like a fridge in reverse, using a pump and compressor to increase further the temperature of the refrigerant. The increased heat is then transferred from the hot refrigerant to the water in the heating system.

 

What is Coefficient of Performance?

Some power is required to run the heat pump, but its heat output is 3 to 4 times the electrical input, so the ratio between the power needed to the output is 1:3 or 1:4. This ratio is known as its Coefficient of Performance (CoP).

The more efficient the heat distribution system within the target building, the lower the required temperature of the heating water and the higher will be the CoP. But GSHPs can work well in leaky, old, listed buildings.

Is a GSHP Safe Against Legionella?

Water used to heat domestic hot water (DHW) systems may need to be boosted at times to raise the temperature to protect against Legionella.

Can a GSHP Be Used for Cooling?

Heat can also be dumped back into the ground to allow a GSHP system to be set up for cooling as well as heating.

GSHP is now a well-known, proven and reliable technology. The key to an effective and efficient system is the site-specific design. The heat pump must be adequately sized to meet the demand. The ground array must also be appropriately sized to extract enough heat from the ground whilst allowing the ground to regenerate its heat, either from the sun or underground water. The result of a poorly sized array can be frozen ground and an inability to deliver the required hot water.

To learn more about GSHP and how it can help your estate, get in touch with us.

The Royal Alexandra & Albert School, a state boarding school for over 1000 students in Surrey, has been progressing through the ReEnergise risk-reduction process for a low-carbon heat project since January this year. The school is now embarking on a pilot installation of ground source heat pumps into two boarding houses. If that is successful, then the remainder of the estate will be converted. This is a major undertaking: over 20 plantrooms in total equating to 2MW of capacity. It all needs to be done before the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Government subsidy scheme closes for new applications for new installation on 31^st March 2021. That’s a challenging timeframe, but doable if carefully managed. The RHI for a programme of this scale is worth £7M over 20 years: that much money is clearly a game-changer in terms of making the programme affordable.

GSHPs can effectively be net-zero carbon. There are no emissions on site from the system. The only emissions occur indirectly, from the grid power being used to run the heat pumps. If a school also opts to buy 100% renewably sourced grid power this means that the total carbon emission count for this system, direct and indirect, is zero.

The programme is being project-managed by ReEnergise. We think this will be the largest GSHP school installation in the South of England, if not in the entire country. (If any reader knows otherwise, please do get in touch). It’s a magnificent undertaking for the school.

We’d like to encourage more schools to take up the Government’s very generous subsidy. At the moment it’s the most cost-effective approach to the all-important transition away from fossil fuels for heating. If you’re reading this and thinking you’re about to miss a golden opportunity, please get in touch. Risk reduction is the key, so it’s not a programme that can be left to the last minute.

 

 

This article was commissioned by the ISBA for the July 2019 edition of The Bursars Review.

July 2020. Fandangle Hall School. Somewhere in the UK.

Ali Frankley, new-ish Bursar of Fandangle Hall School on her first assignment after the ISBA[1], had developed a worrying recurring dream. In it, she is running alongside a herd of migrating Wildebeest as they make for the Mara River in the Serengeti. The noise and dust are incredible as they head down the bank, towards the murky brown water, where the crocs are lurking – waiting to pick them off. Then she is suddenly standing on the far bank, screaming at the Wildebeest with all her might not to try to swim across. But she watches in despair as the herd presses on and the unlucky ones are picked off by the crocs, which thrash their tails and roll and roll, dragging the doomed creatures down. As thousands make it across and come past her, in what seems like a miracle of survival, one of the Wildebeest turns to her and says ‘I know it’s crazy, but we can’t help it. It’s the system. We have no choice.’

————————————

‘Ali. Ali, are you alright?’ It was John Reese-Noble on the phone, the Chair of Governors, who, despite a fearsome reputation, was in practice a thoroughly reasonable and pragmatic person.

‘Sorry John. My mind was wandering for a moment there,’ said Ali.

‘Hmm. So – as you very succinctly put it at the last meeting, Ali, we do need to be sorting out what we are going to do about the Climate Change issue. We need a plan. Even if we cannot in practice do very much – which I personally do not believe – we need to plan it; and resource it.’

Ali knew where this was going. The tasker was always preceded by the flattery.

‘I know you did a module on it at the ISBA. Could you produce a short paper for us to consider at the next meeting of the F&GP. I’ll give this my full backing and there’s obviously a core of like-minded souls on the Main Board, which will help a lot. As you have said, like it or not, we’re at something of a crossroads now.’

That evening, Ali set to. She chose as her title: ‘Net-zero carbon by 2025. A plan for the future financial wellbeing of Fandangle Hall School’…

Now, Dear Reader, please fast forward to Scenario One or Scenario Two below. But you can’t choose both: you are at a crossroads.

Scenario One – July 2025 – Fandangle Hall School

Ali beamed with unconcealed happiness as the local MP cut the ribbon on the new minibus and the assembled audience of governors, parents and staff applauded. But the applause was not really about a minibus, which – let’s face it – is only just slightly more interesting than a plantroom in the school cellars. It was the significance of this particular minibus: it was the last to arrive of the new fleet of electric minibuses. The old diesel fleet had all gone. And it meant that the school estate was now officially net-zero carbon for heat, power and transport.

This was thanks in large part to Ali’s efforts, backed up by an inner circle of supportive governors and an enlightened HM. There was no doubting it had been a hard slog, but by a combination of forethought, planning, tenacity, resilience, charm, tact, diplomacy, effort, and maybe just a touch of cunning and gamesmanship – in short, all the traits of every good bursar – she had done it. Fandangle Hall School was the first net-zero carbon school in the country. Go back 10 years and nobody would have known what the term meant, let alone care about it. But now it was 2025 and everybody cared: students cared, parents cared, staff cared, the media cared – even Dear Reader, that former bastion of Climate Change denial, the Daily Mauling.

Ali reflected on the milestones (you might find them a useful aide memoire too):

School Year 2020/21.

She and John Reese-Noble had hatched the plan. She had secured some useful impartial expert support and a school Climate Change Task-Force had been established, with membership from across the community, including parents.

They had established 3 principles of operation:

• Carbon reduction was to be considered in every school plan or procurement programme, no matter how trivial.
• The entire school community was to be involved in the net zero-carbon campaign, and everybody was to be encouraged to come up with ideas and input.
• Carbon reduction progress was to be reported monthly at the SLT and at each termly Governing Body meeting; plus it was to be displayed widely around the campus so that students and staff could see on a daily basis how progress matched the various targets.

In Ali’s plan she had noted how although energy seems like a minefield, in fact – for strategic purposes – the management of it falls into three broad categories: buy well, use well, generate well. Suddenly it did not seem quite so daunting.

 

She had realised that in order to sort out the power side of things all she had to do was procure 100% renewably sourced grid power. At a stroke this would make all the power usage on the estate zero-carbon. In the end she had sacked her old broker and found a new one, who secured her zero-carbon grid power at no extra cost compared to so-called ‘brown’ power. (He also showed her all his accounts and profit margins, which seemed a good idea).

She had realised that in the ‘Use Well’ category there was no end of things that could be done, but here again, it could be broken down conceptually into bite-sized chunks:

• Chunk One. Sorting out the infrastructure. She got an energy assessor in to do a site-wide energy efficiency survey. This resulted in her having a list of practical technical and energy management interventions the school could make, in order to use a lot less energy.
• Chunk Two. Sorting out behaviour. If staff and students could be persuaded to change how they acted, a lot less energy could be consumed. Fortunately the school was supported by a very dynamic Deputy Head, who took charge of Chunk Two, with resounding success over the next few years.

Under the heading of ‘Generate Well’, they had postponed a new build by one year and switched the funds into a zero-carbon heat programme. They had converted all the plantrooms to Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP) in time to have them working by the 31^st March 2021 subsidy entry deadline (netting the school a cool £5M over 20 years from the UK Government and making the transition affordable). Just to be on the safe side they’d retained some of the old plant (but 5 years later it had all gone – no longer required). It had been a close-run thing, because these low-carbon heat projects cannot be done in a hurry, but like the Prussians at Waterloo they had got there in the nick of time. If only they’d started in 2019 it would have been so much easier – but at least they did it.

Ali also noted that the Sun was still free of charge, and that for each kW in capacity of solar PV installed she would be saving herself potentially a kWh of grid power, per hour of daylight[2]. As grid power was now priced at 12p/kWh ex VAT and rising annually, this was a worthwhile piece of additional power generation on site.

The ISBA had started running a Climate Change & Sustainability Advisory Board for bursars, and Ali had found herself on it. This proved to be a most useful forum for helping each other along; it also had some helpful industry types on it, one of whom, she noticed, seemed to have shares in Hotel Chocolat.

School Year 2021/22.

She and her staff had started working their way through the menu of improvements recommended in the previous year’s energy efficiency survey. They had also focused on the challenge of rendering all the school’s transport zero-carbon. It turned out that transport was going to be the hardest part. Power was already sorted. Ditto heat, by means of the combination of GSHPs and green power from the National Grid to run them. But transport was more difficult. They had already started a programme of EV charging points on the estate, linked up to the solar PV arrays and a bank of storage batteries that had at last become commercially viable. Now they started investigating the options for procuring school EVs.

More broadly in the independent sector, the ISC had finally realised that it should include Sustainability as a heading in the school inspection format. This had had an immediate impact on the rate of change in the sector and put a strain on the supply side; but fortunately Ali was ahead of the curve.

School Year 2022/23. The school transport conversion programme started, with some help from a fundraising campaign, which proved surprisingly popular amongst parents and alumni; (or maybe not so surprising, considering that by then everybody was starting to worry a lot about Climate Change).

School Year 2023/24. Nothing much to report here, except that Ali noticed that a lot of her peers in other schools now seemed a lot more stressed about these things than she was. For one thing, prospective parents nearly all wanted to know what schools were doing about Sustainability and Climate Change. But, Dear Reader, smugness is not an official characteristic of the good bursar, and Ali put it from her mind, whilst quietly smiling to herself and having just one more chocolate brownie with her coffee that morning.

School Year 2024/25. With the arrival of the last of the new EV minibuses, the transformation to the Green Side was complete, and the school had become more successful and prosperous than Ali could possibly have imagined back in 2020.

 

Scenario Two – July 2027 – Fandangle Hall Hotel

Dear Guest,

Welcome to Fandangle Hall Hotel. Here you will find everything you need for an enjoyable stay in this latest acquisition of the de Vour Group…

There were tears in Ali’s eyes as she read the introductory words in the Hotel Information Booklet in Reception. She looked around. It was amazing what they had achieved in just one year, since they’d bought the site.

Ali reflected how it was nobody’s fault really. It was such a competitive market in the independent sector and the school had just not been able to maintain an edge. The final straw had been the change in regulations relating to fossil fuels and the requirement, in late 2023, to start the transition to low-carbon heat without the benefit of the previous subsidy regime. It had proved to be an expensive process and in Fandangle Hall’s case fatal to the cashflow. It was no consolation that hers was not the only school. If only she and John Reese-Noble had been able to persuade the Governors to make the transition earlier, back in 2020… but that’s a pointless exercise thought Ali, no point in crying over spilt milk.

Above the fireplace in what was now the hotel reception they’d hung a huge oil by Jason Morgan of migrating Wildebeeste crossing the River Mara. Ali was staring at it, when she heard a voice behind her.

‘Can I help you ma’am?’ It was the receptionist.

‘I’m fine thanks. I just came to have a look around. I used to work here, when it was a school,’ said Ali.

‘Well, have a nice day ma’am. Fine painting, isn’t it.’

[1] The Independent Schools Bursar Academy: offering a 3-month preparatory course for new recruits, covering subjects like double-entry book-keeping, patience, plate-spinning, endurance, legislation, compliance, patience, resilience, tact, and a host of other essential bursarly skills.

[2] Contrary to popular belief, the Sun does not have to be shining for solar PV to work, but the rate of energy generation is at its best in full sunlight.

It’s been a while since our last newsletter, mainly because we’ve had so much work on that the sales and marketing team have been co-opted into project management tasks, to keep up with the pace. But it’s been a period of significant milestones, both nationally and for us as a company. Here are just a few of them:

In May Great Britain completed a full week without using coal to generate power, the first time it has done so since the Industrial Revolution. This was achieved because solar and wind farms were generating so much power.

In May the UK’s committee on Climate Change assessed that the UK could achieve net-zero carbon status by 2050, affordably. In contrast, Extinction Rebellion demanded it be done by 2025.

In May, we published our 1-page strategy advising schools how to achieve net zero-carbon status. This is intended to be an easy, straightforward, no bull***t guide, giving the basic tenets that senior staff in schools need to have at their fingertips if they wish to see their route through the apparent minefield.

In June the UK Government passed into legislation the commitment to achieve national net zero-carbon status by 2050, amending the Climate Change Act of 2008 to establish the new target.

In June, some rather important Climate Overheating mitigation talks in Bonn ended inconclusively, with Saudi Arabia notably questioning the science underpinning the UN IPCC October 2018 report, which was the one that stated that if we don’t take serious action in the period up to 2030 then life on the planet is going to get an awful lot worse. The USA, Kuwait, and Russia have also repeatedly questioned the science.

In July, Royal Alexandra & Albert School in Surrey committed to undertake two pilot ground source heat pump installations as a risk reduction measure prior to converting the entire estate: that’s 2MW of capacity, which would make it the largest heat pump programme for a school in the South of England, possibly in the whole of the UK. ReEnergise will be project-managing this programme.

In July, the Crowther Lab, a research institute in Zurich, published a report on the predicted practical effects of Climate Overheating. One example was that by 2050 London’s climate would be more like Barcelona’s today. Sounds great, until you take into account that Barcelona had hundreds of years to evolve and operate in that temperature range. Can you imagine how sweaty the Underground will be?

In July RIBA, the Royal Institute of British Architects, declared a Climate Emergency. The decision to acknowledge formally the role that architects have in causing climate change and alleviating it was made at a council meeting of the RIBA.

In July the National Trust decided to divest entirely from fossil fuels around its estates and properties.

In July, the tally of schools and estates going through the ReEnergise step-by-step risk-reduction process en route to low-carbon heat on their estates reached 8, with two more likely to start soon. This equates to about 12MW of heat generation capacity that could be converted to low or zero-carbon systems by January 2021. That’s the equivalent of over 80 plantrooms to be converted from fossil fuels (mainly oil) to a suitable low-carbon alternative, helped by the RHI.

 

This time last year we were busy working with a school on the initial stages of a low-carbon district heating project, that would have seen the entire school estate coming off oil. The scheme was set to save the school about £3 million over the next 20 years. But it didn’t happen in the end because it was relying on conventional lease-financing and the Governing Body, quite understandably, did not want to risk taking on extra debt.

That set us thinking about how we could arrange the financing of a project so that no capital outlay would be required and instant annual savings would be achieved, but there would be no annual lease repayments. The result was the SLCP. This is in essence a heat purchase agreement, but the key break with previous versions seen in the education sector is that the agreement will be run open-book and operate within agreed profit limits. These features will achieve a level of trust in the partnership between provider and school which in our view is essential if the scheme is to flourish.

We launched the SLCP in December. The first school going through is a large boarding school in the South of England. The whole school estate is currently on oil, with an annual heating bill of over £300,000, and some 20 plantrooms serving the main building, boarding houses and other buildings. The proposed low-carbon scheme will be based on a ground source heat pump district scheme of some 3MW in capacity. At this relatively early stage in the step-by-step risk reduction process preceding final commitment, we anticipate that the scheme will achieve a reduction in heating costs in the first year of 15-20%, and savings over 20 years of several £millions. The RHI is worth more than £10million over 20 years, based on a CPI of 2%.

As we get further along in the development we will be able to refine that estimate, so that before both sides of the partnership finally commit to the installation we will know the risks and benefits in enough detail. The key point for the school is that the primary risk lies with us, not the school. In our view this is the fairest scheme a school could ask for if it does not want to commit its own capital.

Number 10. Prime Minister’s Office. 17^th February 2019.

Prime Minister at her desk, prepping for PMQs. Enter Private Secretary.

PS. Prime Minister, the children are going on strike.

PM. Which ones? Labour or our lot?

PS. No, no Prime Minister, the school children. They’re going on strike.

PM. Oh for goodness sake! Isn’t there already enough to be worrying about? What are they going on strike for?

PS. They’re having a day of strike action in protest at the lack of action on climate change.

PM. Are they allowed to do that?

PS. Well, strictly speaking no Prime Minister. But it’s difficult. If we ignore it then we’ll be seen as out of touch. If we register it and condemn it then we’ll be seen as reactionary and out of touch. And if we condone it then we’ll be seen as out of touch and over-reacting by the teaching establishment, who’ll accuse us of not appreciating the pressures they are already under and demand a review of the curriculum and resourcing.

PM. What do you suggest?

PS. I think it’s a one-liner from you to point out that the best way to prepare for the future is to study hard, and then send in Perry with a statement about how the UK is leading the world on intent and action.

PM. How can we be leading a lack of action? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

PS. Well strictly speaking it is Prime Minister. But to be fair, there is mileage in being seen to be doing not enough less slowly than everyone else. At the same time we could leak the latest overspend on the carrier budget to the Mail as a diversion and…

PM. Is there an overspend on the carrier budget?

PS. Well strictly speaking no Prime Minister. The ships are on budget, after strippages and adjustment by the Treasury. But there is a lack of provision for any aircraft.

PM. Banging head on desk. Oh goodness, goodness me!

PS. Well it’s not that serious Prime Minister. We can get some on eBay I’m sure.

PM. I’ve got an idea.

PS. Yes, Prime Minister?

PM. Isn’t it the case that sea levels are going to rise as a result of climate change?

PS. Massively, Prime Minister. Whole communities could be wiped out. South Thanet is looking particularly vulnerable.

PM. That’s a safe Tory seat.

PS. Indeed Prime Minister.

PM. This is more serious than I thought. How about this? Transfer the budget for the carriers from the MOD to BEIS and re-role them as climate change relief ships. That way they could operate usefully all around the world and won’t need any fast jets. And it would teach young Williamson a lesson for being so lippy with the Chinese.

PS. Yes Prime Minister. Inspired.