Clonakilty Community College was awarded a free Solar PV system, which has already saved them nearly €300 on their energy bills in the two weeks it has been installed, to celebrate the school winning the Carbon Club Schools Challenge.
Each of the ten post primary ETB schools in Cork will receive a free energy audit and an electrical vehicle charger.
The challenge was sponsored by the SE Systems Community Fund and the SEAI Community Energy Grant to see who could save the most kilowatts of energy and reduce the most carbon emissions.
Transition year students acted as ambassadors in their school and competed in challenges throughout the year.
A free energy monitoring system with a visual display screen was installed in each school so that all students could see live energy consumption data and the associated CO2 emissions.
School Teacher James Hurley said, ‘The green schools education we had been providing all along now had a real focus with a measurable outcome. We could see the actual difference our combined efforts were making with joules, watts and kilowatt-hours becoming far more real as the weeks progressed.’
‘The report set as the final Carbon Club challenge provided us with the opportunity to consolidate much of that learning as well as learn how to fully decipher the college’s electricity bills,’ Mr Hurley continued.
‘We expect to save in the region of €3500 per annum off our electricity bills with the installation of solar panels,’ Mr Hurley concluded.
An awards ceremony at Clonakilty Community College was attended by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the Cork Education and Training Board, Local TD Christopher O Sullivan, Cllr Paul Hayes, students from the schools and the Carbon Club Steering committee.
