Science of Sustainability: Energy at the UEA

This week our Dickinson class learned about energy reduction at the UEA. The speaker was Keith Tovey, an environmental specialist from the UEA. He gave us a presentation that lasted a little over an hour talking about the various ways UEA has reduced its energy demand over the past two decades. For example, many of the buildings have been renovated using more efficient lighting technologies that cut energy consumption down drastically. Additionally the buildings have been insulated with as much as two feet of insulation on the outside walls, use thicker windows, and innovative heating/cooling techniques. Tovey is recognized not only at UEA, but by the BBC and the world as a environmental/energy expert. Since renovations have taken place in the 90s, the UEA has reduced its energy consumption by 70% per capita. This would be much greater if some of the higher energy demand buildings could be renovated, but the two main buildings, the Library and Arts building have structural problems preventing them from undergoing desired improvements.

After the presentation we were given a tour of a few of the buildings, highlighting the measures that have been put into place to improve the college. Below is a picture of solar panels that have been put in place on this building along with bigger windows allowing for more light to enter the building during the day - mind you, there may not be much light due to a consistent cloud cover in the Norfolk county.

Zicer building

We also learned about a power plant UEA is building, a Biomass Advanced Gasifier/ Combined Heat power station. This will provide an extra 1.4Mw of electricity and is suspected to have a 7 year payback. It will use sustainable, local wood chips from waste and saw mills. This power station is predicted to reduce UEA carbon emissions by 25% even with the increasing student population predictions of 250%. The goal of this project and the building initiative at the UEA is to reduce their carbon emissions making the world a more sustainable place for everyone. Below are some more pictures from our tour of the UEA current power station.

Heating/cooling center in Zicer building. During Warmer weather, it blows in cold air during the night to use less energy and cool down all surfaces in the building. During the day warmer air blows in and this gradually warms up the surfaces, but the ventilation surfaces cool the warm air as it is dispersed throughout the building.

After Keith Tovey showed us the inside of the solar panel reader, he struggled to put the case back on. This was during the later part of the day when the building was out of direct sunlight and the solar panels were only generating 23w of energy.

In the boiler room, one of the furnaces used to generate power.

Boiler room from the back. Sean and Sean walking up to the group.

This next week to continue our understanding of energy we are going on a field trip to a wind farm in England. On the way we will learn about the effectiveness of wind energy - typically around 30% - which means that on average they are 30% effective at producing energy (the peak wind speeds for a wind turbine is around 30mph). We will also get to see, hopefully, offshore wind turbines which are much more effective than land turbines due to the great amount of wind captured by the turbine.