Saving energy

Juliette, Nora, Nora, Marla, Lua

4 March, 2021, A3a
 Index:

1. Introduction
2. Why should we save energy?
3. Interviews
4. What does the school do?
5. Saving energy in the Netherlands
6. Outro
7. Sources
Introduction

For this project, we had to investigate and learn about saving energy at school. For a special
twist, we were paired with a group of students all the way in India.
We communicated with them over WhatsApp and talked about the differences in saving energy
at school in our countries.
But, sadly, because of the terrible virus that is terrorising people all over the world right now,
going to school and investigate how we saved energy at school and how that was different from
the Indian school was very hard.
Luckily we could still figure something out, and the essay may not be complete, but we tried our
best to hand something in with the information we had and had access to.
Why should we save energy?

Consuming a lot of power has the effect of power plants releasing more toxic fumes in the air,
this is a cause of the greenhouse effect. The planet is at risk because of this, if we want to
prevent ice caps of melting and drought this is how we should do it.

How do you save energy?

There are many different things you can do to save energy
Here are a few:
Prevent overly using electricity (lights, heater, washing machine)
Don’t waste water, never leave the tap open
Shower cold and short
Unplug any unused electronics
Switch to renewable energy and reusable products
Solar panels are also a good source of green electricity, including wind and hydro sources

How can this help us?

By this an immediate effect is the reduction of toxic fumes in the air. You protect ecosystems
from further destruction, people contributing to this helps a lot on the way of saving the planet.
Using renewable energy prevents the using up of limited resources, for example: fossil fuels and
coal.
Interviews

Marla interviewing her dad

Q: how do you save energy at home?
[Richard] ”I go around switching lights off”

Q: Do you do any recycling? if so how much?

[Richard] “I recycle all glass, plastic and paper into recycling points at the end of our street, like
most people in Amsterdam.”

Q: what would you do to save more energy if you had the resources?
[Richard] “I would install new windows that are double glazed, so that it takes less gas and
electricity to heat up the apartment.”

Q: What do you think the Netherlands/Amsterdam is doing well?

[Richard] “Some things I think the Netherlands is doing well is wind turbines. A coupIe of years
ago I switched energy providers and now all of my electricity comes from wind turbines, which is
a lot better. Of course everybody cycles and barely uses cars, which is great!”

Q: What's something the Netherlands/Amsterdam should be doing better?

[Richard] “To be more green it would be best to stop using gas completely ( because burning
gas creates CO2 )
recycling efforts and laws about packaging, they should be making a much bigger effort for
reducing plastic use. ( For example in the shops when you want to buy some apples you have
to get a plastic bag every time ) Which is really bad.”

Lua’s interviewing her friend

Q: What does your school do to save energy?
Well, her school does a couple things to save energy. One of the things is that mostly in the
summer, but also when it isn’t that cold, they just don't turn on the heating. And when it is cold,
the windows are always closed so you don’t waste any heat. We also have solar panels
covering our whole school’s roof. Our school building has a lot of windows everywhere, so most
of the time the light is not turned on because we can just use the daylight. When it’s really hot
outside, we just open the big windows and the air flows in, instead of using the air conditioner.

Q: What does th school ask the students regarding saving energy?

The school just recommends some different things like; not showering too long, turn the lights
off if you leave a room, and do not turn the lights on in daytime while turning the heating off in
the night. Most of the students really try to do it, and often their parents already do these kinds
of things.
 What does the school do?

Esprit Scholen thinks sustainability and saving energy is very important. All of the school under
Esprit Scholen get their energy from suppliers. When they look for suitable energy suppliers,
they take sustainability in consideration.
The Berlage Lyceum is also planning a huge renovation. The Berlage Lyceum has two very old
buildings, which aren’t up to date with the latest isolation techniques. That’s a problem they are
hoping to fix with the renovations. Some points the Berlage Lyceum is going to pay attention to
while renovating the buildings:
1. Isolating windows, the roof and walls.
2. Exploring the possibilities of a gas-free school.
3. Installing the most sustainable heating devices, to safe energy and thus money. The goal is to
be careful with heat and the energy that it takes.
4. Installing solar panels on the roofs of both buildings.
5. Reducing old air in the hallways.
When planning a renovation, you have to find the balance between energy usage and a
comfortable and healthy inside climate. To help school such as the Berlage Lyceum with finding
this balance, there is the “Frisse scholen richtlijn”. You can find this on the website of the RVO.
On this website, you will find all the information you need for a green school. You can find the
laws that are tied with eventual renovation of schools and tools you can use. You will also find
tips on how you can make your own energy consumption more environmentally friendly and pre-
made plans for new and old school buildings. Other things you will find on the site are the plan
for Green Deal Scholen, how to create a healthy inside environment in schools, material to
discuss in a lesson about green schools, the costs of making a school more environmentally
friendly and links to reports on green schools to read if you want to learn more.
Saving energy in India vs saving energy in the Netherlands

About 38% of all of India’s energy is renewable, that is quite a lot considering the fact that only
8.6% approximately of all of the energy in the Netherlands is renewable. India therefore does
better when it comes to using renewable energy sources than the Netherlands. We can
definitely learn from this.

In the Netherlands there are many sustainable energy methods that are used. As you can see in
the graph below, the Netherlands mainly uses wind energy. You can also see in this graph that
the Netherlands started to use more and more green energy sources over time. Who knows,
maybe within a few years the Netherlands will only use renewable energy sources.

India also uses a lot of green ways to supply energy. As you can see in the diagram below,
India mainly uses wind and solar energy. We can also see how much megawatts each energy
source provides. This is all quite a lot, and we see that India is doing well with using green
energy sources.

Both the Netherlands and India use pretty much sustainable energy sources, especially wind
energy is used a lot along both of these countries. India, however, uses way more green energy
sources than the Netherlands. Our country can learn from this. Hopefully in the future both India
and the Netherlands will only use green energy sources as a way of gaining their energy.
Outro

Working on this project was, as said earlier, very weird and kind of hard because of corona. But,
that doesn’t take away from the fact that this was a very special project to work on, and it was a
lot of fun communicating with the Indian people about this topic. This is, undeniably, a very
important topic to learn about, and this project was a very good way of doing so.
It was also fun seeing how different and similar the Indian way of handling sustainable energy
was to the Dutch way.
We all enjoyed working on this project.
- Juliette, Nora, Nora, Marla and Lua.
Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_India
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_Netherlands