A first for a UK university - and it's happening at Oxford Brookes

Oxford Brookes is set to become the UK’s first university to retrofit pioneering new heating technology on campus - the first UK University to have an operational deep borehole system.

The technology reduces the environmental impact of the existing heating and cooling system, and Oxford Brookes will become the first UK university with an operational deep borehole system. The concept involves the capture of waste energy from cooling, storing it in the earth for later use as heat. The development will involve the drilling of fourteen boreholes to a depth of approximately 220m. Piping from the boreholes will connect to a flowline, trenched underground the Headington Campus’ Energy Centre. The system replaces the use of fossil fuels and reduces energy consumption across both cooling and heating processes. Requiring significantly less space than traditional ground source heating it can be retrofitted to existing sites, such as the Energy Centre in the University’s John Henry Brookes Building (words taken from the Oxford Brookes website - read the full article here).

A group of 4th year students who are studying facilities management were invited to go and take a look at the developments (thanks to Max Muncaster for the photos):

ECS Carbon Reduction Lead, Gavin Hodgson explaining to the students where the ground source heat pumps will be installed

ECS showing the students the site prepared for drilling geothermal bore holes on Headington Campus

ECS geothermal project - being shown the steel casings to be used for the 200m deep bore holes

For more information about our undergraduate courses in construction management, take a look here.