Energy survey for schools

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What the energy survey is for
How to do the survey
What energy information you need to give us
Contact us for help
Contacts

What the energy survey is for

All state schools must complete the energy survey as part of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme.

Carbon Neutral Government Programme – Ministry for the Environment

As the funder of schools and the owner of most school property, we want to better understand all schools’ energy usage. This will help us provide better advice to schools about energy decisions and property planning processes. We can also consider options to improve efficiency across the portfolio.

Benefits of monitoring your school's energy use include:

knowing your energy consumption
comparing your school with other schools
monitoring energy use over time and seeing where it is being wasted
setting targets
supporting property planning decisions.

Watch the video for more information about the energy survey and operational efficiency.

Te Haratau - operational efficiency

Operational efficiency collects and reports information on the resources needed to operate school buildings, including energy consumption.

Te Haratau Programme – Operational Efficiency (not read)

Within the Te Haratau programme, Operational Efficiency is one of three key aspects that will work to achieve quality learning environments as part of a well-managed and sustainable portfolio.

This will help to deliver equitable and excellent outcomes for every child.

Operational Efficiency collects and reports information on the resources required to operate school buildings, such as electricity and water.

The first stage of Operational Efficiency is collecting energy consumption data across the portfolio to determine the energy performance of each school, compared to other similar schools. In order to understand each school and kura’s energy consumption, we first need authorisation from the School Board and the school or Kura to complete the Energy Survey.

The Energy Survey (not read)

The Energy Survey collects information on the energy sources required to operate school buildings.
For example, a school may use various energy sources, each with differing levels of consumption and carbon emissions, such as electricity, gas or coal. Once the Energy Survey is completed, it will enable a full picture of a school or Kura’s energy consumption.

Why is it important (not read)

By filling out the Energy Survey, it will help give the school or Kura:

1) A better understanding of energy consumption to inform operational changes such as using timers on heating systems and

2) Better decision making to ensure long term property planning of the school includes energy efficient and sustainability initiatives.

The Energy Survey also provides key data to help inform:

3) Carbon emissions reporting for the Carbon Neutral Government Programme. This data is being used to help identify the best opportunities for emission reduction; to set targets and create plans to reduce emissions; and allow us to track our progress along the way.

This is an exciting opportunity to be a part of making school and Kura more energy efficient and
sustainable, contributing to a carbon neutral Aotearoa.

What do Schools and Kura need to do? (not read)

The process for completing the Energy Survey is easy and only requires 2 actions.

Action 1: Sign the Authorisation Form

The Ministry emails the School Board an authorisation form, which, once signed, gives the Ministry permission to collect consumption data directly from the supplier. After this form has been completed, an automated email is sent containing the Energy Survey. It’s important to check the junk or spam folder if the email can’t be found in the regular inbox.

Action 2: Fill out the Energy Survey

Schools and Kura need a digital copy of recent invoices from each energy retailer, for example, an electricity, piped gas, or coal invoice. With these on hand, the survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

To date, over 80% of School Boards have filled out the Energy Survey and authorised access to energy data. If your school or Kura hasn’t completed the Energy Survey, please complete it as soon as possible.

Where to go for more information (not read)

For more information about Operational Efficiency and the Carbon Neutral Government Programme, have a look at these resources.

If you have a specific question, contact the Te Haratau team.

How to do the survey

An email with an authorisation request and link to the survey will be sent to the email address we have on file for your board or school. We need authorisation from your school board before you can do the energy survey.

If you cannot find the email, check your spam or junk folders.

To get someone else at your school to complete the survey, contact us to resend the survey request to their email address. The survey link in the email will only work for the person it was sent to. This is a security measure.

Your school can also complete the energy survey through the 10 Year Property Planning (10YPP) process. You can see the results in an electricity benchmarking report (EBR) in the Helios Portal.

Helios – Applications and Online Systems

If you have completed the energy survey and are still getting emails, this may be because we need your school to update information. Your data may go out of date due to things like an energy retailer or account change.

What energy information you need to give us

Invoices from energy suppliers

You need to provide the most recent invoice from each of your school's energy supplier. For example, if your school consumes electricity, gas and wood, then you would provide the most recent invoice for each of these fuel sources. This has all the information we need to collect consumption data on an ongoing basis.

Electricity and piped gas

For electricity and piped gas, we need to know 3 things:

the name of the company you get it from
your customer or account number
the Installation Control Point (ICP) number, which is on your invoice.

About the ICP number

How to enter the ICP number into your survey

Schools often have more than 1 ICP number, since they usually take up more land than a standard residential property. When you complete the survey, include all ICP numbers so we can capture all the consumption data for your school.

The Installation Control Point (ICP) number on your invoice normally has 15 characters, with both letters and numbers. When you enter the ICP number into the survey, you must include only letters and numbers, not any other special character, such as a dash.

What the ICP number is used for

ICP numbers tell you how your property is connected to the electricity network. The number is used by energy retailers to measure energy consumption and invoice consumers based on how much energy they use. We use it to collect data from energy retailers about how much energy is being used at each ICP, for each school.

Bottled gas

For bottled gas we need to know:

the name of the company you get it from
your customer or account number.

Other energy sources

For other energy sources, such as wood pellets, coal, and diesel, we need to know:

if your school uses it
the company you get it from.

If you have solar panels, we need to know who installed the solar panels. We may use this to investigate accessing solar data.

Contact us for help

For questions on any of the above topics, contact your property advisor or email us.

Email: [email protected]

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Te Haratau - operational efficiency

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