The Bedford College Group has won a national award for sustainability projects across its estate.
The cutting carbon event was staged on Wednesday June 15, 2022, when college group CEO Ian Pryce CBE and colleagues accepted the top prize.
The Association for Decentralised Energy’s annual awards celebrate innovative energy solutions designed around the needs of the user.
As part of efforts to significantly reduce carbon emissions, The Bedford College Group has utilised a £2.8 million grant from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), which was delivered by Salix and funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
This allowed the college to implement major infrastructure changes across a number of campuses throughout 2021, in support of its goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The Group, which includes several sites across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, is expecting to save over 350 tonnes of carbon and £88,000 annually through their ambitious heat decarbonisation plan.
The Bedford College Group CEO Ian Pryce CBE said: “It is important that educators show leadership when it comes to sustainability. We have tried to invest in making our buildings more energy efficient and the Salix grants have helped us accelerate those improvements in line with the wishes of our students and our communities. I am delighted the estates team has been recognised in these awards.”
New solutions
The project included a Water Source Head Pump linked to an existing river water connection at the Cauldwell Street campus. The link was re-purposed to feed the new Water Source Heat Pumps. Filter systems were re-furbished to provide an extremely efficient de-carbonised heating.
By combining the ambitions of two projects, an existing over-cladding project and the river water extraction facility, a solution became available to provide a Net Zero Carbon facility that was not available in the scope of the individual projects.
The demand for heating was reduced by upgrading the thermal insulation requirements of the over-cladding project. This enables the building to be completely heated by an extremely efficient river water heat pump system within the limits of the college’s current extraction license.
The installation of on site renewable energy generation via Solar PV installed on the large flat roof enabled us to achieve the colleges first Net Zero Carbon EPC (Awaiting registration with CIBSE).
Get daily FREE news here:
Sign up to get your own daily update of Bedfordshire News — It’s free.
