Backed by a £10 million grant from the Scottish Funding Council, which is
supporting carbon reduction schemes across Scottish Higher Education,
the University proposes to generate power through clean biomass at
Guardbridge and pump hot water 4 miles underground to St Andrews to heat
and cool its labs and residences. The University also hopes to establish a Knowledge Exchange Hub to provide “missing link” facilities which would allow research and discoveries made in University labs to be translated to working prototypes. It will also offer affordable accommodation to local companies, with the
aim of attracting businesses and skills linked to the renewables
sector. Work on the site, which is to be named the Sustainable Power and Research Campus (SPARC), will start in
2014 with the Renewable Energy Centre complete and operational by
December 2015. [
press release]
