Harper Adams University College will install an anaerobic digester at its Shropshire campus which it claims will offset its carbon emissions more than three times over.

The £3million-plus project will generate heat and power from farm and foot waste by first breaking it down into biogas.

Paul Moran, estates and facilities manager at Harper Adams, said: “This waste-to-energy project meets many of the criteria set out in the Government’s 2007 Energy White Paper and has the potential to greatly benefit both Harper Adams and the wider community.

“Instead of being left to degrade in landfill or elsewhere, leaking methane into the atmosphere, food and farm waste can be digested in the AD unit and recycled into three useful by-products… Our calculations show that the project will create ongoing carbon savings of 11,229 tonnes a year – which is 3.4 times the current emissions from campus buildings, meaning that Harper Adams will become more than three times carbon neutral.”

The University College is one of three higher education institutions in England to win a share of a pot of £10 million for “transformational" projects under the Revolving Green Fund set up by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Salix Finance.

As reported on bsdlive.co.uk, the government is to fund five new anaerobic digestion projects which will generate energy from organic waste.

The grants are being awarded under the £10 million Defra Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Programme. It is hoped that the technology will highlight the benefits of anaerobic digestion to a range of industries and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.