University of Warwick - CHP Case Study

Supplying the University of Warwick with sustainable hot-water cooling & electricity

The University of Warwick is one of the leading UK universities. Voted the best campus in the UK, it includes education and research buildings, student accommodation, Warwick Arts Centre, sports centre, shops, banks, bars and restaurants.

The challenge

Supplying efficient and reliable heating, hot-water cooling and electricity is important to support the research, academic and community activities of the university and to supply the student accommodation on campus.

To maximise the use of funding for academic activities and make the campus into a genuine, green icon through its Carbon Management Implementation Plan, its energy supply needed to be cost - and environmentally efficient.

The solution

The University of Warwick identified that a district heating scheme incorporating Combined Heat and Power (CHP) was the best way to deliver energy to the campus community as this could provide higher efficiencies than individual grid supplies and separate boilers.

Starting in 2000, Veolia designed and delivered CHP on campus:

• 2001 – 400kWe unit installed for University Medical Centre.
• 2003 – two 1.4MWe units with absorption chilling to provide base-load heat and electricity and feed the air conditioning.
• 2005 – 1.4MWe unit installed to supply heat and electricity to the main campus.

Value delivered

The university has been internationally recognised for the CHP-based district heating by winning the European COGEN Technology/Innovation award.