Double joy for university as it completes green energy efficiency works and celebrates latest funding success

We visit Oxford Brookes to see how the dedicated team is progressing its net zero journey

An ambitious university team is looking to a cleaner energy future, driving a better environment for its students and the Oxford community.

Oxford Brookes University has received funding through Phases 1 and Phase 3c of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. It has also successfully tapped into the latest round of Phase 4 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.

At Salix we deliver the popular programme on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The funding will help the university to become a net-zero carbon organisation by 2040, where only unavoidable emissions are offset. 

Our team went along to the site to see for themselves the progress made and talk about the vision for the future.

We visited the John Henry Brookes teaching building which is being decarbonised through Phase 1 and 3c of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme as well as the Clive Booth Student Village which is about to embark on a Phase 4 project.

Salix programme co-ordinator Molly Evanson said: “This is a large project balancing significant energy efficiency and conservation measures and the team is extremely ambitious.

“Whilst we have worked with Oxford Brookes over many years and support them very regularly through our calls, it’s wonderful to come a long and meet everyone face to face.

“Everyone is incredibly passionate here about meeting their net zero goals.”

Oxford Brookes received £2.3 million through Phase 1 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. The funding has been used to install a geo-exchange heating system and two ground source heat pumps.  This work was support by designs funded by a Low Carbon Skills Fund grant, also delivered by our teams at Salix.

The university also received £1 million through Phase 3c of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. This has enabled the team to build on the geothermal heat pump infrastructure installed with the aid Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme Phase 1.

The Phase 3c project enhances Phase 1 of the scheme by cascading two further heat pumps off the system to provide higher grade heat to 8 existing buildings which are served from the John Henry Brookes Building energy centre. 

The heat pumps will replace the heat output from ageing and unreliable gas-fired combined heat and power unit, the cooling output from an inefficient absorption chiller, and provide additional heat output to displace significant carbon emissions. 

The work is about to start and orders for heat pumps have been placed, with preparations started.

The team is also celebrating having been recently awarded £5.2 million under Phase 4 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. 

The project will decarbonise heat at the Clive Booth Student Village. A new onsite heat network will be delivered which will be connected to a new array of geo-exchange boreholes, ground source heat pumps and supplementary air source heat pumps to provide more than 80% of the heating energy needs of these buildings.

It involves removing 114 boilers from the site.  

During the visit Oxford Brookes energy manager Gavin Hodgson explained the challenge behind the projects and how solutions were found.

He said: “Ahead of the first Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme we knew that significant inroads towards heat decarbonisation needed to take place. 

“We were lucky enough to partner with Black Mountain Developments and Erda Energy to develop and deliver a solution that was a match for the dense urban site that we occupy and also facilitating heat generation which is economically competitive with the gas boilers.”

Additionally, since 2009, Salix Finance’s England Recycling Fund, now closed, has enabled Oxford Brookes to deliver 30 energy efficiency projects including the installation of LED lighting, insulation, solar panels and an automated computer power management system to monitor and control energy usage.

Through the support of Salix, Oxford Brookes has been able to fund the installation of solar panels, the latest of which take up about 1,400m2 of roof space across three locations generating around 260,000kWh of solar derived electricity per year. 

Combined, the university now has some 760kWp of installed capacity which has the ability to generates up to 800,000kWh of electricity annually, contributing around 6% of the university’s total electricity needs.

In The Oxford Climate Awards 2024 Oxford Brookes was recognised for its work to inspire the next generation of climate leaders and drive positive change in environmental sustainability.

The University was named as the ‘Sustainable Further Education School/ College of the Year’ at the ceremony.

The university is proud of its commitment to reduce its carbon footprint, supporting Oxford’s aims of achieving net-zero carbon emissions for the city by 2040.  

The university declared a climate emergency in 2021.