University campus district energy schemes Scotland

The challenge
Our universities face a range of challenges across their estates; stringent Carbon Management Plan (CMP) targets place a year-on-year obligation to mitigate emissions, whilst rising utility costs and resilience issues are squeezing already tight budgets. A university recently posed the question; “Can we save carbon, increase resilience and reduce operating costs at the same time?”

Buro Happold has significant experience of operating within the Higher Education sector and has direct experience of working with universities to address these challenges. We know that the sector is being faced with increased costs due to the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), threats of reduced funding if carbon targets are not met and an overarching necessity to attract students with a brand that demonstrates sustainability.

We also understand that whilst universities are keen to explore larger scale infrastructure projects, such as Combined Heat & Power (CHP) and district energy networks, they have concerns over selecting the correct technology, capital costs, future flexibility and the resilience of their energy supplies moving forwards.

The commercial structures of any new infrastructure schemes are also key; innovative ways to unlock finance and technical knowledge through partnership/ joint ventures are required to assist the process.

Our solutions
BuroHappold’s ongoing work with four of the major Scottish universities has helped them to meet these challenges head on. Our teams of energy and sustainability engineers and asset strategy consultants are providing robust and inventive solutions, including schemes for; the University of Edinburgh, the University of Strathclyde, the University of Glasgow and the University of the West of Scotland.

The key is to have a joined up strategy that can meet both the energy and carbon mitigation requirements of each campus today, whilst providing a flexible and adaptable plan over the longer term. The University of Edinburgh Holyrood CHP scheme achieves this, through our design of new heat and power networks that will in future be connected to further buildings and also linked to the university’s George Square networks; providing highly resilient infrastructure across the main city centre campus. Carbon savings in the order of 2,000 tonnes per annum are predicted for the scheme.

Whilst achieving carbon targets and demonstrating a commitment to a sustainable future is high on the agenda, demonstrating a sound business case is also of the utmost importance. Our work with the University of Glasgow centres around proving the technical and financial viability of replacing existing ageing district steam distribution with new low temperature district heating and the incorporation of CHP. The inclusion of CHP within the scheme will help to provide highly efficient generation of heat and power for the Gilmorehill campus, with an anticipated payback within 15 years. Buro Happold has developed rigorous modelling tools to help us undertake such business case assessment, giving us the ability to quickly assess the viability of district energy schemes.

Providing robust and resilient energy supply on a university campus is critical to the daily operation of the buildings; downtime and outages not only disrupt business, but harm the reputation of the institution. We also recognise that the security of our energy supplies is likely to become an even more critical issue in coming years, as fossil fuel supplies dwindle and a transition is made towards renewable generation. By taking the University of Edinburgh’s Holyrood campus off multiple overloaded electrical substations and designing a single new high voltage supply for the district scheme, the routine power outages that have been experienced over the past few years will be a thing of the past.

Choice of renewable energy generation sources and fuel type are key to providing the correct solution to serve any new district energy networks. The implementation of technologies such as gas CHP, biomass and biofuels is highly dependent on location, space availability, planning constraints and carbon targets. The replacement of existing centralised gas boiler plant and district heat mains on the University of the West of Scotland’s Paisley campus has allowed us the opportunity to explore a range of technologies to assess the best fit for the energy profiles of the buildings served by the network. The chosen solution includes provision for a future 1MW biomass boiler system to compliment the new central plant and heat network. Biodiesel and biofuel (pure plant oil) solutions were also considered to give the right blend of carbon savings and security of future fuel supply. The new district energy scheme is predicted to achieve a circa £80,000 saving per annum compared to existing systems.

The outcome
Through our work with these Scottish universities we are able to provide a definitive answer to the question posed; our universities can save carbon, increase resilience and reduce operating costs, with the added benefit of brand enhancement to help attract students from around the world.

The projects
The University of Edinburgh
Holyrood CHP and district heat and power scheme design
Holyrood student residencies – 1,000 bed residencies with connections to the Holyrood CHP heat and power networks
Potterow School of Informatics – award winning new academic building with connections to George Square heating and cooling networks
The University of Strathclyde
CHP Energy Centre and district networks feasibility study
The University of the West of Scotland
Paisley campus centralised Energy Centre and heat mains replacement design
The University of Glasgow
Feasibility study for the replacement of existing steam infrastructure with new centralised generation plant and district energy networks