Decarbonising our campuses

We continue to invest in sustainable initiatives to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and provide energy security for our campuses.  

In recent years we have installed solar panels on a number of building roofs and 1,800 panels on our land near Duryard Halls of Residence, creating a total two Mega Watts of energy for our Streatham Campus. We also switched the heating source in the Cornwall House building and swimming pool from gas to clean electricity air source heat pumps. The new solar panels will generate over 1,000 MWh of clean energy per year (equivalent to providing electricity to over 250 domestic households) and save 225 tonnes of CO2 per year. The air source heat pumps at Cornwall House will save over 160 tonnes of CO2 compared to heating the building and swimming pool with fossil fuels (that’s equivalent to heating 60 domestic households).  

More solar panel installations are planned for the next three to five years to further reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and we are proposing to use wind power to provide clean energy to the Penryn Campus supporting our target to be Carbon Net Zero by 2030 and our ambition in Strategy 2030 to lead meaningful action against the climate emergency.  

In 2025 we have added solar panels on our Physics, Richards building and Holland Hall roof spaces, adding to our fast growing solar generation capacity. 

More installations are planned in the coming years on our buildings, car parks and land which, once complete, increases our total solar generation to 4.1 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per year. This electricity is equivalent to the power used by 1,500 households and should provide about 15% of the University’s annual requirements, saving 840 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.