Cambridge University Press is both the oldest publishing house in the world and the oldest university press and has been producing books continuously since the first University Press book was printed in the early 16th century.
Overview of the challenges
Cambridge University Press is committed to reducing its impact on the environment through careful management of its activities, products and services. For the past ten years they have held certification in the Environmental Management System Standard ISO14001 with annual monitoring of their carbon emissions to help evaluate and further improve their environmental performance.
During 2017–18 they discussed the development of a long-term carbon reduction strategy that would cover the decades to 2050, dividing and prioritising their goals into the three different ‘scopes’, or categories defined by the ‘Greenhouse Gas Protocol’, a standard that helps countries and cities track progress toward climate goals. They also re-evaluated their internal and external environmental risks and opportunities and examined the possibility of introducing solar panels on flat roof areas of the Shaftesbury Road headquarter.
With our help this possibility has become a reality.
Our approach
The system is unique because it has over 500kw installed onto the flat roof surface with an east/west facing orientation making it one of the UK’s largest flat roof installations. As part of the grid approval, we also needed to limit the export capacity to 100kw, which was achieved by utilising smart meter dynamic limiting.
The results
The solar PV system has massively contributed to Cambridge University Press’s long-term carbon reduction strategy by avoiding on average 232,985kg CO2 emissions PA and reducing their daily energy demand by 25%. Due to this success we are working with them to increase the system further.
To date the system has already performed above its predicted yield by 10% year to date.
