We've taken a socially responsible approach to our energy efficiency in the past and already have a strong infrastructure of sustainable facilities to build upon.
Generating between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 kWh of electricity and catering for around 14% of the University's electricity consumption each year, the wind turbine has produced enough electricity to power over 1200 homes for a year.
The University is currently constructing an 11MW solar PV farm on the University’s land to the east of the M6 motorway. The solar farm will consist of more than 17,000 pieces of solar panels and will be able to generate approximately 10GWh of electricity annually. (2,000 tCO2 emissions). Construction is due to complete in Spring 2025.
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BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is a sustainability assessment method that is used to masterplan buildings. As part of our BREEAM accreditation, a number of buildings on campus are equipped with rooftop solar panels to offset the building electricity usage directly.
The Biomass Boiler burns organic material such as locally sourced wood chips to generate heat, which is then fed into the University’s district heating system. The biomass boiler is accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.
After receiving more than £21m of funding from the Government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF), Lancaster University will begin constructing a new Net Zero Energy Centre in late 2024. The funding will be matched by the University to develop a new £40 million energy centre, which will reduce the use of gas on campus by over 90%. The existing heat network will also be extended to cover the majority of the buildings on campus. Equipped with a 7MW Air-Source Heat Pump array, the new energy centre is projected to generate over 39 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of low-carbon heat.
Heat pump technology utilises the condensation cycle, which extract heat from the sources and transfer that to a medium – the term “Air source heat pump” means that heat is extracted from atmospheric air.
Contrary to a conventional boiler, heat pumps are electrically driven, instead of relying on the combustion of fuel. A heat pump can be 3 times more efficient than a conventional gas boiler.
The fact that heat pumps are electrically driven allows them to utilise renewable energy generation, such as wind and solar PV. The modulating feature of heating provision also demonstrates potential in demand response management, where the operation of the heat pump can be adjusted based on the availability of renewable energy sources.
