Students Tour Future Guardbridge Biomass Energy Centre

George King
Wednesday 20 November 2013
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The Guardbridge site includes many former buildings used in the paper milling process which will be converted into a biomass energy centre.

Today we led over a dozen interested students on a special tour of the former Guardbridge paper mill, which is set to host one of the University’s two new macro scale renewable energy installations, the Guardbridge Biomass Energy Centre.

The second macro renewables project is Kenly Wind Farm which was recently given approval in October, 2013.

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Dr Roddy Yarr explains plans for the site before leading students around existing buildings.

The Guardbridge site, located just 4 miles from St Andrews, is a former industrial paper mill which closed its doors in 2008. Soon after, the University purchased the site with designs for creating a biomass energy plant in order to reduce rising carbon emissions and ever increasing energy rates.

The biomass plant, currently in the design stage, will burn woodchips from the undesirables left after commercial logging sourced locally within a 50km radius. Woodchips, which absorb CO2 during their lifecycles, are burned in a boiler to heat hot water. The hot water is then pumped from Guardbridge to the University’s North Haugh campus, with only a small percentage of heat loss along the way within the insulated piping. From there the hot water is integrated into the current heating systems to provide warmth to all University buildings in that area.

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Students saw how the biomass plant is to be fuelled from local sources of renewable waste timber, which is chipped before entering the boiler.

Students were led on a walking tour through the old paper mill buildings conducted by the University’s Environment and Energy Manager, Dr Roddy Yarr. The group saw live wood chipping as part of a noise test for the mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) associated with planning permissions.

Dr Roddy Yarr helped explain how these facilities – once complete – will not only provide renewable energy directly to the University, but will also support the local timber industry and farmers, and set a precedent for other University and public sector bodies by demonstrating how an ambitious carbon neutral plan can be achieved in practice.

Judging by the success of today’s tour we are considering running another tour in semester 2 for those still interested in learning about the project up close. You can register your interest by email [email protected] – we will be in touch with further updates.

Logs of little use for making timber products are perfect for chipping and fuelling a biomass plant.
Logs of little use for making timber products are perfect for chipping and fuelling a biomass plant.

Check out additional student coverage of the tour below.

The Saint feature article: http://www.thesaint-online.com/2013/11/estates-shows-the-the-saint-around-the-universitys-guardbridge-energy-centre/

The Conscious Student blog: http://theconsciousstudent.com/2013/11/21/a-tour-of-the-guardbridge-biomass-plant-site/

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One reply to "Students Tour Future Guardbridge Biomass Energy Centre"

  • Who are the Energy winners? | Transition University of St Andrews
    Thursday 8 May 2014, 2.27pm

    […] In a way, the Interhall competition reflects an issue which reaches across the whole climate change debate – how can my little actions make a difference? It also illustrates the way in which no single solution can or should be the answer: to get the carbon footprint of halls down, we need a combination of  the University’s large scale plans to generate ‘green’ electricity and hot water, Estates ongoing upgrades to more efficient boilers and insulation, and for staff and students to do the things that are within their control. Putting on a jumper rather than turning up the radiator will always make sense, whether it reduces the amount of mains gas piped in from the North sea or Russia, or saves someone putting another log on the fire at the new Guardbridge energy centre. […]

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