A £4.5m government grant has been given to the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) to help decarbonise heating across its campuses in Surrey.
The funding will go towards investment in new technologies and increasing on-site power generation, which UCA says will help deliver a greater than 90% reduction in its carbon emissions from energy consumption over a ten-year period.
The work will go towards meeting the university’s commitment to net zero carbon emissions by the end of this decade.
UCA Sustainability Manager Scott Keiller says the university will develop plans in the coming months to replace its gas-powered heating with grounded source and air source heat pumps by spring 2025.
“We will also be significantly increasing our solar power generation to reduce our demand on grid electricity and adding sophisticated energy control systems and grid connected energy storage,” Keiller added.
The £4.5m grant comes from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
UCA says it will commit a similar amount of funding to the plans.