Living and learning net zero

UEL and Siemens are providing students with access to real industry experience

The University of East London and Siemens have joined up for so much more than a net-zero target. Faye Bowser examines how the university and the wider community are benefitting

Faye Bowser

Head of energy & performance services at Siemens

www.siemens.com

n April 2022 the University of

IEast London (UEL) announced an aspirational ambition to achieve carbon net-zero at its campuses in London Docklands and Stratford by 2030. The university additionally affirmed its intent to embed sustainability across the curriculum to allow students to develop the skills they need to succeed in a green economy.

The project will also address the needs of the people who live and work in the surrounding London borough of Newham – the most diverse and fastest-growing region in Europe but with some of the highest pollution and health inequalities in the UK.

UEL is committed, through its work with Siemens, to produce a costeffective pathway to net-zero that can achieve wider outcomes for the university, students, staff and the local community. However, the campuses have complex energy requirements with over 25,000 students and 2,000 staff.

The first step in the project focused on understanding existing energy usage. The Siemens team audited the 17 buildings on the campuses to identify how energy mix and energy consumption relate to the occupancy and use of each individual space. From this, UEL’s total emissions were calculated, providing a clear project trajectory to achieve the goal of carbon net-zero by 2030. The resulting road-map creates a schedule of work to be carried out taking into account the financial implications, both operational savings and funding of capital investments as they arise.

BMS system upgrades

For implementation, the starting point was improving energy efficiency through building management system upgrades. This controls the heating and ventilation across all the university’s buildings for existing plant and new technology as it is introduced to replace or augment the current equipment. An early element of the project was then to set about replacing over 11,000 light fittings with LED lighting that produces light up to 90 per cent more efficiently than incandescent light bulbs.

The generation of clean energy, within the space constraints of a very urban location, created a major challenge area for the team. This has so far indicated using solar ( PV) and water-source heat pumps, fed from the Thames, plus, where necessary, air- or ground-source heat pumps. Electric vehicle charging solutions are also being implemented across the sites. These activities will take the university to net zero and deliver carbon-free energy for at least the next 25 years.

Real-time energy data

UEL, crucially, has access to real-time campus energy data through a Living Lab – a physical and virtual space that staff, students, researchers and UEL’s partners, locally and globally, can use to monitor and understand energy usage, occupancy data and energy resilience across the estate. The Living Lab can be used to simulate, and rigorously test, changes before they happen . It’s an innovation space available to pilot the technologies Siemens is installing across the campus; testing the technology and how the work will be carried out ahead of commissioning for a smooth transition. This reduces time for installation, avoids the costs of trial and error and encourages the UEL and Siemens project team to focus on continuous improvement throughout the project lifecycle.

Platform for student research

The evolving energy system and changing energy use data provides an excellent, live platform for student and graduate research projects to be formulated and executed, as well as new technology concepts to be tested and evaluated. So, the overall project is embedded in the curriculum of the university and the project is open to new ideas and innovations.

Together, UEL and Siemens are providing students with access to real industry experience and exposure to a live net-zero transformation that incorporates strong examples of the skills and jobs being created by the green economy. The students also see first-hand the application of smart technology that a net-zero future will rely on. This is important in the context of world economies and the UK, which, for example, is still woefully short of meeting the projected annual demand, from its growing green economy, for 124,000 engineers and technicians, alongside an additional requirement for 79,000 related roles involving a mixed application of other skill sets.

UEL’s similarity to a city also encourages everybody involved to look at the scalability of solutions used and their potential application in the planning of smart towns and cities of the future both in the UK and abroad.

The Living Lab exists within the current Knowledge Dock Building, soon to become the Royal Docks Centre for Sustainability, which also serves as an innovation hub for local green energy enterprises. These are attracted to the locale by access to the university’s resources, graduates and research facilities. New businesses are equally created as spin-offs from the university research.

A touchstone of the project is that everyone must benefit. The university’s net-zero project helps the Newham borough become greener and cleaner as it develops and inspires the next generation of sustainability leaders and contributes to the pool of knowledge about how we all achieve net-zero. ■