MORE than 500 schools will benefit from substantially reduced heating bills after Hampshire County Council commissioned a radical boiler energy control system to help cut costs.

It selected Midas Energy to carry out an £1.8 million scheme to improve the efficiency of boilers at its schools.

Engineers fitted the new control system to 1,720 boilers at 506 different primary and secondary schools.

The system is designed to ensure boilers operate more efficiently, reducing energy lost from ‘dry cycling’ and better analysing the temperature to stop boilers firing for short periods, which can be wasteful. The systems were fitted between April 2013 and February 2014, and are expected to reduce heating bills for schools by at least 12 per cent.

Netley Abbey Junior School in Netley was assessed by an energy consultant after the new boiler controls were fitted in May 2013 and by the first quarter of 2014 the school had saved £452 on its energy bills – a drop of 17.6 per cent.