In January 2020 ReEnergise was tasked to undertake a feasibility study for the decarbonisation of heat at Kingston Maurward College, a Further Education college in Dorset with an aspiration to achieve net-zero by 2025. The college intent was to get the entire estate converted to a low-carbon heat technology. We followed our now standard study methodology, which matches industry best-practice and Public Sector guidelines.

Our 68 page report included: a Board level executive summary; assessment of the current baseline and condition of the estate; current energy usage; provision of an energy strategy; design concepts for biomass and heat pump solutions; full business case analysis for each technology and various funding options including capital outlay/operating costs etc; discussion of the pros and cons of each option; sensitivity analysis for the financial modelling; illustrative installation programmes; details of next steps for the pursuit of projects arising from this decarbonisation plan; and recommendations on the way ahead.

The next step was to support the College staff in securing funding for implementation, to follow our step-by-step risk reduction process. This includes technical confirmation and project definition, detailed design, tendering for installation contractors, and finally the construction phase of the programme, handover to the College and establishing a viable O&M programme.

Several months later, and courtesy of grants from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and Low-Carbon Dorset, the project is now in the final stages of tendering for installation, which is also being managed by ReEnergise. Note that our innovative approach to tendering for the construction phase has achieved a reduction in required capex from £2.4m to £1.6m – a saving to the College of some £800,000.

Keeping this programme going, to implement what came out of the original highly-regarded HDP, has required enormous effort and resilience within the project team, given significant site-specific technical challenges and also funding uncertainties at key moments. This is an excellent example of a practical and pragmatic HDP being used to convert an idea into action, which is the ultimate point of the exercise