The revolving Green Fund, a partnership between the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Carbon Trust funded Salix Finance, has awarded a £25M funding package that will be used to support energy projects at 44 higher education establishments.

Of particular interest are the three project at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Harper Adams University College and Lancaster University where £10M will be shared to fund renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

UES will use the funding to support the setting up of a biomass energy centre at its Norwich Campus; the first combined heat and power biomass gasification installation in the UK. Agricultural college Harper Adams located in Shropshire is using its share of the award to help develop an anaerobic digestion project which will use both agricultural and food waste. Lancaster University is using the funding to install energy saving measures that will cut its electricity consumption.

Harper Adams

With the aim of becoming largely energy self sufficient, Harper Adams is developing a 350KW anaerobic digestion (AD) plant to convert waste from the college farm together with food waste into energy. This project alone is claimed to save 11,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The AD project is in addition to a biomass CHP generator already in use by the college. Forestry residues, wood chips, wood pellets and energy crop biomass are used to generate 100W of electricity and 25W of heat. The project cost a total of £500,00 and has been operational since December 005.