OKEHAMPTON College has won the prestigious Marks and Spencer Energy Fund prize that will provide the college with sufficient funding to instal LED lighting.

By receiving the most online votes via the Marks and Spencer’s energy competition website, Okehampton College will now receive the money needed for further energy saving measures to be taken within the college’s facilities.

The large comprehensive school and Sixth Form will install LED lights in order to provide more light for less electricity, which in turn will keep their demand for electricity as close to zero as possible.

The M&S Energy Community Energy Fund is a national competition that offers grants for community groups around Great Britain who are looking to install renewable technology or energy efficiency measures.

This year Marks and Spencer’s gave way up to £350,000 to a variety of winning projects across the UK. There were 25 winners; 19 regional winners as voting by the public and the six judges’ prize winners.

Marks and Spencer announced that there was a total of 78,837 votes and Okehampton College was the winner of the South West region.

Keith Webber of Okehampton College said: ‘We are serious about getting our energy consumption under control and a prize like this is a great opportunity to make even more progress.

‘The way the M&S competition is organised is very clever as by asking people to actually vote gains total interest and engagement in the competition and at the same time raises the importance of conserving energy.

‘Okehampton College is really grateful to the large number of people who voted in support of our bid; thanks indeed for such great support.’

Over recent years the college has made huge efforts to reduce fossil fuel derived energy consumption through efficiency measures, people engagement and renewable energy systems.

Since embarking upon this agenda the college’s import of electricity and gas have both fallen by around 70% and has helped numerous other schools and organisations with ideas to monitor and control energy use and reduce waste.

Okehampton College has installed better heating controls, systems to monitor wasted energy, more efficient lighting, double glazing, additonal insulation, solar panels, biomass heating and a wind turbine. The college has also managed to raise £1,200 through crowd funding.

The prize funding and money raised by the college will go towards installing LED lights. The current affordability of LED lighting products also means that the college now present a very viable way to further reduce energy demand and at the same time improve lighting levels using less electricity.