Environmental research

This project includes activities that will contribute in the improvement of the energy efficiency in the primary school Kiril and Metodij - Kocani in two areas: improvement of the ambience temperature in the classrooms followed by the decreasing of the spending of the petrol and decreasing of the spending of the electric power from the electrical light. The Primary school Kiril and Metodij - Kocani is one of the rare schools in Macedonia in which the bigger part of the heating energy derives from regenerated source like the geothermal water, and a particular smaller part comes from the traditional fuel (the heating petrol). Following the project results from the previously conducted project by the AC Equal to All - Kocani with the financial support from GEF and the local authorities in the Municipality of Kocani for better usage of the regenerated energy sources and decreasing the usage of the conventional fuels (petrol), some problems were notified which significantly are decreasing the energy efficiency of the heating system. Because of some real conditions in the school (like old windows that does not glue properly, constant opening of the doors during the class breaks etc), the ambience temperature in the classrooms is below the average one which contributes the students to spend certain periods of the school lessons seating in not enough heated area. The second part of the problem is focused on the large number of light bulb posts in the classrooms which contribute to having relatively big spending of electric power which is a bigger part of the school s expenses. Today s technology of using the economic light bulbs which have LED diodes and a small spending of electricity provides, through replacing the existing light bulbs with the economic ones, an enormous savings of the electricity power to be achieved. The overall objective of the project is to get a school which will have from the environmental point of view the highest level possible of usage the regenerated energy sources and the highest coefficient possible of their usage, and by confirming the expected results, to be implemented in the rest of the schools in the municipality of Kocani, and also in the other school of Macedonia. With the implementation of some of the measurements for improving the energy efficiency like replacing the old windows with new ones with thermopan glass and installing a mechanism for mechanical closing of the doors in the classrooms, the existing situation will be overcame, and in some part it will contribute to the decreasing of the quantity of the fuel (geothermal water and petrol) that is used for heating. Following the second aspect of the project s focus - through the smaller spending of the so-called economic light bulbs and the particular time periods in which they will be used, it will lead to this: the biggest part of this spending to be provided by the solar modules for production of electricity and accumulating systems for its storage. These modules with their 30-year life time and the big life time of the accumulating systems and the economic light bulbs (approx. 10 years) are showing that this kind of a system is well paid off. The possibility of realization of this project as a pilot project or its eventual positive results to provide implementation of the project activities in other schools of Macedonia is enormous having in mind that the same problems occur almost everywhere, and the more expensive fuels dictate a wider commitment for improving the energy efficiency as a priority of the local authorities in all the municipalities of Macedonia. The ecological aspect of this project itself is very clear because it will save fuel for heating (which itself emits large quantities of bad gases) and it will decrease the spending of the electricity, which in Macedonia is made mostly from coal (which itself creates big problems with the emission of those bad gases), and it is well known that these gases are the main reason for the problem of the climate changes that the whole humanity is facing.

Macedonia