Carbon and energy reduction

We aim to:

• Achieve net zero emissions (from scope 1 and 2) by 2025.
• Achieve net zero emissions for indirect scope 3 emissions by 2030-50.
• Compensate for the remaining emissions by instilling low carbon values and habits into staff and students and developing research and low carbon technology solutions.
• Improve the energy efficiency of all university buildings and facilities, moving away from fossil fuels.

Our performance

• We've reduced CO2e emissions from gas and electricity by 62% since the base year 1990 to 2019-20.
• Over the next five years, we have a plan in place to reduce our emissions and introduce offsetting for the remaining emissions that we are unable to remove.
• Since 2010 we have identified emissions from other sources, and are able to monitor the scope 3 emissions associated with water, waste, business travel and commuting.
  

How do we monitor energy use?

Our Building Management System 

Our Building Management System (BMS) controls the mechanical and electrical services in 95 per cent of our campus buildings. It ensures intelligent control of building systems and that there's no energy waste. The BMS, for example, will turn on the boilers according to external temperatures, and can report a fire or a break-in. We have nearly 500 meters on campus, the majority on a half hourly basis, providing information to the BMS.

Monitoring and targeting systems and alerts

We also have a system of profile alerts, which is a live portal offering constant review of our energy use. The system checks consumption against historic profiles, and energy use against BMS models, and creates live alerts when an item of plant is not functioning as expected (and using more energy than it should). This enables cost avoidance, identifying and fixing issues promptly and avoiding increases in energy use. When receiving these alerts, the team review the data, our systems and visit the site to correct the issue. Sometimes it's easy to identify the problem but sometimes it's more difficult and might involve us coming in out of hours to look and listen to what is happening in the building. In little more than 24 months since its installation, this system has helped us to identify and prevent potential increases in consumption of around £300,000.

Generating energy

In 2012, our Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant was opened. Located in Davy Building, the CHP plant provides heat to 50% of the campus. It integrates the production of usable heat and power in one efficient process, generating electricity whilst capturing usable heat produced during the process.

In conventional electricity production, heat is a wasted by-product. Our CHP plant is typically 30% more efficient than traditional gas boilers. This has saved the University approximately £3,600 a week. Our Marine Station and Derriford Research Facility also have onsite CHP.

We've installed Inverter Controls on all electric motors on campus, giving a soft start and stop and variable speed control. Inverters allow us to operate motors at optimum performance. This saves energy, improves the power factor (reducing the reactive power required reduces energy use) and improves performance. 

In 2019-20 we commenced the Energy Infrastructure Project looking at the longer term plan to transition away from gas-led CHP towards a lower temperature, electrically led heat and cooling network. This will ultimately be lower carbon due to the growing input from renewable technology into the electricity grid.

Louvers and fins provide solar shading in the Link, Rolle and Babbage buildings. These reduce heat gain from the sun inside the building, in turn reducing demand for cooling.

We have natural ventilation and night cooling in the Portland Square, Marine and The House buildings, where the buildings are designed to ventilate naturally using convection currents. The large atrium in the Portland Square building allows hot air to rise and draws fresh air into the building without mechanical intervention. And, night time cooling uses the natural ventilation to cool the concrete's thermal mass at night, which then cools the building in the daytime.

We've installed voltage optimisation in the larger buildings around campus, including Portland Square, Roland Levinsky and Nancy Astor. It uses a special transformer to control the reduction in voltage to reduce energy use and power demand. This has the potential to reduce electricity consumption by 8 per cent, which is the equivalent of 573 TCO2e and nearly £100,000.

We use LEDs across most of our campus as they typically use five time less energy than traditional lighting. Over the past year we have converted the Smeaton, Fitzroy and Scott Buildings to LED lighting. Rolle and Portland Square conversions are expected to be completed in 2021.