A project aimed at cutting energy costs in Oxfordshire’s secondary schools is on course to save more than £100,000.

The Schools Energy Efficiency Project, based at the Environmental Information Exchange at Oxford Brookes University, worked with site managers at state and independent schools in the county to try to shave off unnecessary expenditure on things like heating, lighting and computers.

And the project, which will run until the end of 2009, estimated the measures being put in place would save a total of £110,000 across the 20 schools – an average of 7.3 per cent.

Project co-ordinator Moira Dorey said: “We were going for things they could do now rather than saying ‘knock down your buildings and rebuild’, and working with site managers, the people who are in charge of heating controls, lighting controls and all that kind of thing.

“You can try to educate pupils with things like turning off lights, which is very important, but putting in lighting sensors, or dusk-to-dawn outdoor lights, will make automatic differences.”

The programme started with each of the schools being given an energy audit by the Carbon Trust, then putting in place measures that would cut down on energy wastage, such as IT shutdown programmes or thermostats to switch off the heating on hot days.

Among the schools taking part was Wheatley Park School, in Holton.

Business manager Kevin Heritage said a number of green measures had been put in place in its new arts and media building, which is due to open officially on Friday. The school had also introduced a buildings management system allowing each of the seven boilers across the large site to be controlled centrally.

He said: “I think it has been very important, both in terms of raising the profile of energy saving across the school, but also we are 3,000 kilowatt hours per month down in relation to last year, which is a significant saving.”

St Gregory the Great School in Oxford is also taking part in the scheme.

School bursar Ron Caffrey said: “It was very helpful to have somebody come and look at our buildings.

“We have done things like reduced the air conditioning in certain areas because we didn’t need it to be as cold as we thought and things like keeping doors and windows closed to conserve heat.

“We have also purchased software to turn off our computers automatically at the end of the day.”

The project followed a pilot scheme at St Helen and St Katharine School in Abingdon and St Birinus School in Didcot, and it is anticipated for the measures put in place to make ongoing savings at the 20 schools.