Promoting & sustaining energy efficiency across the University & across Bath

The University has signed up to a groundbreaking energy-saving initiative in conjunction with a number of other local public sector organisations.

The energy efficiency scheme, developed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE), involves Bath & North East Somerset Council and its partners in the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP).

CSE, a Bristol-based national charity with more than 20 years' experience in large scale energy projects, will provide the expertise to manage the initiative.

Funding from this project is from the Treasury's Invest to Save Budget designed to bring about improvements in the delivery of local public services. This innovative project to cut energy consumption across Bath and NE Somerset has been awarded more than £770,000 funding by the Treasury.

The aim of the project is to cut energy consumption for participating members of the LSP by at least 10 per cent over the next three years. It could save an estimated £4.7m and significant amounts of CO2 between now and 2012.

The project is two pronged. On the one hand more than 20 high energy use buildings will have the latest in high-tech monitoring and metering equipment installed in the first two years. This will highlight where savings are being made and where more work needs to be done. In addition, thousands of staff will be trained at all levels in each organisation to deliver changes at a grass roots level. This will include training energy champions, building managers and frontline staff.

The Bath & North East Somerset Local Strategic Partnership was formed in June 2002. It aims to meet local needs by promoting partnership working and is made up of public services, as well as voluntary, community and business sector representatives. The organisations involved employ more than 14,000 staff and their combined energy consumption costs are more than £6.2m. This also produces more than 78,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. With rising energy costs and the growing impacts of climate change, there is a strong incentive for reducing energy consumption.

CSE are charged with both the technical management of the project and an amount of training. This will include training for Energy Managers (in using the equipment to be installed and monitoring use), Energy Champions (the first port of call for energy users) and frontline staff. In order to roll this training out across the project participants it has been agreed that CSE will also train trainers from within those organisations, who will then go on to train their own staff.

The energy efficiency scheme involves the following partners:

• Bath & North East Somerset Council
• Avon and Somerset Constabulary (Bath & North East Somerset District)
• Bath & North East Somerset Primary Care Trust
• Royal United Hospital Trust
• Somer Housing Trust
• Bath & North East Somerset Council for Voluntary Services
• Bath & North East Somerset Racial Equality Council
• City of Bath College
• University of Bath
• Bath Spa University

Contacts

Please see contact details under Contacts at CSE/Contacts at the University.

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