A sustainable campus
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A sustainable campus

Sustainability with Plymouth University

Plymouth University aims to be a carbon neutral campus by 2030. We're constantly striving to make our campus more energy efficient and sustainable. Below are some changes made to our buildings to date.   

RAINWATER HARVESTING

Roland Levinsky Nancy Astor

  • Rainwater is collected from the roof and stored in large tanks
  • This water is then used for the flushing of toilets and saves drinking water being used 
    •  
Roland Levinksy Building
 

PASSIVE VENTILATION AND NIGHT COOLING  

Portland Square  
  • Portland Square is designed so that it ventilates naturally using natural convection currents. The large atrium in the building allows hot air to move up and pulls fresh air in to ventilate the building without mechanical services.
  • Night time cooling is when concrete floor beams are cooled by night air temperatures. These beams then cool the building the next day.
  • An intelligent weather system ensures that the building is not over cooled at night and then re-heated the next day. 

​BUILDING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 

95% of campus buildings  
  • A Building Management System (BMS) controls all the mechanical and electrical services within a building.
  • BMS ensures energy is not wasted and predicts the best time for boilers to be switched on/off.
  • BMS alters the temperature of a boiler according to the outside temperature.
    A BMS can report a fire, sound an alarm and show the point of entry if a break-in occurs.
  • The University also has Thermostatic Radiator Valves in the majority of buildings. These give staff and students more control over the temperature of a room

 

SOLAR HOT WATER

Nancy Astor
Portland Square
Smeaton  
  • Solar energy heats the fluid inside panels which then heats water used by taps.
  • When the sun is not strong enough to heat the water, it still saves energy as boilers are only required to ‘top-up’ the temperature. 

 Portland Square

​MECHANICAL HEAT RECOVERY SYSTEM 

Used in the 'big buildings' around campus including Portland Square, Davy and the Charles Seale-Hayne Library.     
  • A heat exchanger is used to extract energy from circulated air. This energy is used to heat incoming fresh air which is then circulated around the building.
  • Before a room becomes stuffy, the BMS will tell the heat recovery system not to re-circulate air, but bring in clean fresh air which can be heated to the desired temperature.

 

INVERTER CONTROLS  

Used in the 'big buildings' around campus including Davy, Fitzroy, Babbage and Smeaton.  
 
  • Electric motors are used to run heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and tend to be sized for peak demand meaning for most of the time they operate ineffectively.
  • Retro fitting inverter controls to fans, means the output can match demand accurately. This is done by reducing the speed of the motor. If you reduce the motor by 20% it will reduce 50% of the operating cost and carbon emissions.  

 Babbage building

​VOLTAGE OPTIMISATION  

Used in the 'big buildings' around campus including Portand Square, Roland Levinsky and Nancy Astor.  
  • A specialised transformer is used to control the reduction in voltages to reduce energy use and power demand.
  • The installation of voltage optimisers has already started on campus and due to be completed within the next 12 months.
  • Voltage optimisers have the potential to save 8% of our total electricity consumption – that’s 573 tonnes of carbon dioxide or nearly £100,000.

PHANTOM POWER STATION

Davy

  • Plymouth University has signed up to a national carbon reduction strategy known as STOR (Short Term Operational Reduction).
  • At times of high electrical demand, electricity producers have to turn on additional power stations to meet customer needs.
  • Users with high energy consumption could switch off equipment for short periods of time, to reduce the need to produce the extra electricity. This process is usually referred to as a Phantom Power Station, also referred to as ENERNOC.

LED LIGHTING

Used around the Plymouth University campus

  • We're currently in the process of replacing filament light bulbs with more efficient LED’s.
  • 11W LEDs are replacing 60W bulbs which saves more than five times the energy, as well as lasting longer than the 60W bulbs.
  • Daylight controls, Infrared body heat/movement and absence detection are in use in areas of campus with only small adjustments needed.

​SOLAR SHADING  

Link
Rolle
Babbage  
  • Many buildings around campus have been designed to include solar shading.
  • This comes in the form of louvers found in the Link Building and fins found in the Rolle Building & the Babbage Building.
  • Solar shading saves energy by reducing heat from the sun, which helps with maintaining comfortable conditions in the room and puts less demand on cooling.

​OUR MOST SUSTAINABLE BUILDING  

  • It can be argued that the Link Building is the most sustainable building on campus.
  • This building was due to be demolished to make way for a new building. Following structural engineering works, it was decided that the building could be adapted rather than rebuilt from scratch.
  • Adaptations included solar shading and internal refurbishment work which saved huge amounts of waste, materials, energy, money and carbon dioxide. An extra floor was also added.

​HOW CAN I FIND OUT MORE?  

To find out more about saving enery, visit our saving energy on campus page.
 
For more information on sustainability at Plymouth University, visit www.plymouth.ac.uk/sustainability
  Link Building