The University of Reading has slashed its CO2 emissions and is aiming to go further
Reducing carbon emissions by 35% in just over five years and saving £17m in the process is some achievement. But for the University of Reading this is only the start. It is now targeting a further 10% reduction by 2021 while increasing student numbers and expanding its campus facilities.
Reading has cut its annual carbon emissions to 28,573 tonnes compared with 43,984 tonnes in the 2008–09 academic (baseline) year. Reducing them on such a scale has cost the university about £4m. Investment includes replacing old lighting systems, improving insulation, expanding building control systems and installing energy-efficient equipment.
The impressive performance at Reading contrasts with slow progress in the higher education sector overall. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) set a 43% carbon reduction target for the sector by 2020 against 2005 levels. Sustainability consultancy Brite Green reported last autumn that English universities were projected to reduce emissions by just 15% by then, and that more than 70% of institutions were unlikely to meet their own carbon targets.
Getting started
The executive board signed off the university’s carbon management plan in 2011, allocating £3.5m for reduction measures between July 2011 and July 2016. Energy and sustainability manager Dan Fernbank describes the 35% reduction target as ‘ambitious’: ‘It was at the higher end of the targets universities were setting to help achieve the overall HEFCE goal for 2020.’
He took up his role a few months into the plan, halfway through the 2011–12 financial year and recalls: ‘My first task was to spend what was left of the carbon reduction budget for that year.’ Many of the buildings on the university’s main campus, Whiteknights, date from the 1960s and 1970s, when insulation was poor and single-glazed windows the norm. Fernbank initiated a draught-proofing programme. ‘It was quick and easy to get going and made a noticeable difference, saving energy and making buildings more comfortable to work and study in.’
He also looked again at the figures underpinning the carbon management plan. ‘I did some analyses and found we would need to spend nearer to £4m to achieve the reduction target. But for the additional £500,000, I predicted a higher return, with savings of up to £17m.’
After the ‘easy win’ from the draught proofing, his next priority was to begin the rollout of a meter installation project, costing £300,000, to ensure the heat, electricity and water that buildings consume is metered separately.
‘This was a priority. We spend about £6.5m a year on energy and had just one electricity meter for the whole Whiteknights site, which covers 1.3 sq km and houses more than 70 buildings. Without knowing what each building was consuming we could not identify where the best opportunities were and where to prioritise investment,’ says Fernbank. In 2014-15 alone, 63 meters, costing more than £160,000, were installed in 23 buildings across the Whiteknights campus.
A science project
Data from meters revealed that the energy consumed by the five largest science buildings was responsible for one-third of the university’s carbon footprint each year. ‘So, if nothing else, we knew we had to focus on them,’ says Fernbank. One project, which was completed last September and cost around £1m, was to improve the efficiency of fume cupboards in the science laboratories across Reading’s estate. ‘It was a huge investment but we are measuring savings of £316,680 a year, so a return-on-investment [ROI] in just over three years. That’s good payback by anyone’s standards,’ says Fernbank.
The initiative started in 2014 with a pilot to upgrade the fume cupboard ventilation in the chemistry department (44 units). Part-funded by a £187,000 interest-free loan from Salix Finance, it cost £250,000 and saved £88,000 in the first year. The university then reviewed its remaining 208 fume cupboards before investing a further £768,000 during 2015-16. Around half the overall investment was funded by a 0% loan from the HEFCE’s revolving green fund. The work consisted of:
- upgrading constant air volume fume cupboard ventilation to variable. This will result in significant energy savings when the cupboard sashes are closed;
- replacing 98 extraction fans with ones that use 32% less energy on average;
- providing new ventilation to 49 chemical storage cupboards, so their associated fume cupboards can be switched off when not in use;
- re-calibrating the face velocities of cupboards across campus; and
- removing two redundant fume cupboards.
As well as the financial savings, the upgraded equipment is delivering carbon savings of 1,110 tonnes a year, although initial monitoring suggests the figure could be higher. Electricity savings since the laboratories in the chemistry research department reopened in June 2016 show carbon savings 27% higher than originally forecast.
Heating up
In October 2015, the university completed the first phase of a district heating network to replace a steam system. Work included the construction of a gas-fuelled combined heat and power plant and installation of more than 3 km of piping. The network supplies heat and hot water to 16 buildings on Whiteknights and generates 15% of the site’s electricity from a CHP engine. Carbon savings from the system are about 1,200 tonnes a year, while it has cut annual energy bills by around £250,000.
Fernbank says the energy centre and district heating system have contributed about 3% to the 35% reduction in carbon. ‘The system is not strictly part of the carbon management plan because we had an ageing system that required replacing,’ says Fernbank. ‘But it’s contributing to reducing our carbon footprint. We are planning to connect another five or six buildings. It’s not cheap but the payback is reasonable.’
Recommissioning of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is continuing. Phase I was completed last year at a cost of £160,000. Phase II is focused on the Henley Business School and the London Road campus, the university’s original site and now home to its Institute of Education, a teacher training facility. It will save an estimated 200 tonnes of carbon a year. Insulating pipework and valves across the university has brought down carbon emissions by more than 850 tonnes a year, saving about £80,000 annually.
Around 7% of the total reduction in emissions at Reading has been from improved insulation, optimised building controls, more efficient heating, air conditioning controls and the upgraded fume cupboard ventilation systems. More efficient lighting and motors have delivered around 3% of overall savings.
Ensuring buildings are highly insulated before investing in control systems is the preferred option, but this is not always possible. Fernbank says: ‘In an ideal world you get the metering in place, gather two years of data to understand your energy hotspots before insulating to high standards and then fitting new controls.
But it’s often not a linear process. You do what you can when the opportunity arises. One of our largest buildings, the HumSS [humanities and social sciences], dates from the 1960s and had poor insulation and single glazing, although it was not bad in terms of heating zones. We had improved the building controls and installed interim draught proofing, but it wasn’t until last year, when it was refurbished, that we had the opportunity to improve the roof insulation and we are about to begin installing double-glazing. But we were only able to insulate the roof because it finally needed replacing.’
Better together
Fernbank says chains of command have changed since 2014 and that he now reports to the director of maintenance, which has benefited progress on the carbon management plan and helped the university make better use of resources. ‘It has made a big difference, improving synergies between maintenance programmes and capital investment and the plan,’ he says. ‘We can meld projects together to generate bigger savings. I can contribute a bit of my budget to a maintenance project to get some carbon savings and vice versa. Also, many of the ideas for saving energy come from the maintenance team.’
Fernbank has a broad plan of action up to 2021 for projects to ensure the university hits its new 45% target as well as a list of measures for the next 12 months. ‘The maintenance department has similar plans and schedules and before our plans for the year are rolled out we meet to discuss where we can work together. It might be that they do some lighting work and I can provide some funding to raise the budget and get a more efficient solution.’
He says a project that is selected scores highly against four criteria: opportunity – the extent to which it will deliver energy and carbon reductions; difficulty – how easy it is to implement; reputation – extent to which it will enhance the standing of the university; and cost – initial outlay and return on investment.
‘We have a long list of potential projects that we keep adding to. We regularly go through it and score each one, from one to four, against our criteria. Anything that scores really highly is likely to get the green light, while those that get a low rating tend to be scrapped.’
That is not always the case, however. Take solar panels. ‘These score highly on reputation, but the payback is not great compared with other measures, such as insulation,’ says Fernbank. ‘Solar is visible. People notice the panels. They don’t see the pipe insulation that has saved far more. You need a balance.’
Indeed, the university has installed solar panels on four buildings, saving it £5,500 in 2015-16, although it shelved plans to launch a community-owned solar scheme after the government altered the payments available under the feed-in tariffs.
Increasingly the university is funding projects itself, although Fernbank says organisations such as the HEFCE and Salix have the advantage of providing external verification for scheme: ‘These guys sense-check what we are saying, and whether the ROI and the carbon savings stack up.’
In early 2015 Reading achieved certification to ISO 50001, the international energy management standard. Fernbank says 50001 provides a framework to ensure energy is managed effectively for the long term.
An absolute target
The university’s carbon reduction target is absolute. Fernbank concedes that meeting the 45% target will be challenging, particularly because the university is spending £250m over the next five years on new facilities and is seeking to increase the number of students. ‘Our footprint is going to get bigger and the “low-hanging fruit” has largely been picked so we’re going to have to work harder to make real savings. We will need to be innovative and we are looking at other technologies, such as heat pumps. It will undoubtedly be more expensive. But there are still some good paybacks.’
Eight keys to achieving the 35% reduction
- Committed senior leadership.
- Localised as well as centralised action.
- Regular progress reports, including on carbon performance, financial investments and associated returns.
- An evolving programme with regular annual reviews rather than a static list of projects.
- Close monitoring of and planning for key estate and business strategy changes to anticipate impacts on the programme.
- A combination of internal and external funding streams, with 40% coming from external sources.
- A strong energy management system, certified to ISO 50001.
- A committed, enthusiastic and persistent team of dedicated staff.
Source: University of Reading sustainability services
