BU wins government funding for campus decarbonisation

Bournemouth University has been awarded £1.4m from the government through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. This will support our CECAP goal of net zero emissions by 2030/31. It will be used to replace end of life fossil fuel gas boilers on Talbot Campus with electrically powered Air Source Heat Pumps and add hundreds more solar panels.

This project will be delivered from summer 2023 and will be completed by the end of March 2024. It will remove fossil fuel gas heating and hot water from Dorset House, Sir Michael Cobham Library (SMCL) and Kimmeridge House and add a solar panel array onto the roof of Dorset House which will generate around 100,000 kWh of green electricity per year.

The complete project will eliminate around 200 tonnes of carbon emissions. This is because moving from gas to electrically powered heating has a lower carbon footprint. The electricity we use comes from either on site solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, we generate about five percent on site and we buy enough green electricity to meet the rest of our campus needs through Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) backed tariffs. 

BU will make a 12% contribution which takes the project value to £1.6m. This project is part of our Heat Decarbonisation Plan which has been developed this year to carry out technical studies of 21 BU buildings to identify how to move to low carbon heating sources. This includes thermal imagery of five buildings to identify building fabric improvements to reduce the heating required.

Our approach includes a focus on improving the thermal properties of the building fabric and additional works funded by BU will likely include cavity wall insultation for the ground floor and a new, better insulated roof for Dorset House as well as improvements for SMCL. This is part of our Eco Campus Platinum, ISO50001 and ISO14001 certified Environment and Energy Management System where we work to reduce the amount of energy we need and decarbonise our energy sources.