Meridian Academies Trust has been working to enhance the energy performance of its schools, focusing on reducing gas consumption across its estate.
Barker was appointed for our specialist knowledge in energy data and our track record in translating complex metering data into easy-to-understand insights.
We gathered and consolidated consumption data across the entire estate and presented it through the EO Portal dashboard, making it far easier to track trends, compare sites and take informed action on energy performance.
One school, Ely College, was demonstrating high gas usage during the night, leading to high costs.
Barker collaborated closely with the appointed meter operator, Energy Assets, to install Automated Meter Reading dataloggers across four gas meters at the school. This gave consultants access to industry-approved consumption data, enabling the trust to detect abnormal usage patterns.
It became evident that staff had been manually overriding the boiler controls, causing gas‑fired equipment to run unnecessarily outside of scheduled hours.
In December 2024, under normal conditions, the school’s consumption came to 187,397 kWh
However, when the issue occurred in December 2025, usage spiked dramatically to 331,433 kWh, highlighting the scale of the problem
The school incurred an extra £6,000 in gas charges, clearly underscoring the financial impact of the issue
The client was able to analyse the school’s real-time operational patterns and intervene. Had the pattern persisted through to April, excess consumption may have surpassed 250,000 kWh, representing an additional cost of more than £15,000 and equivalent to 48 tonnes of carbon.
The Trust continues to use the EO Portal to analyse real‑time consumption data, with Barker providing monthly performance reports that track trends, flag anomalies, and evidence behavioural changes across the estate.
“The energy dashboards reports are very interesting and really help drill down into the inefficiencies as they really stand out on the data extract by school.”
