Gloucestershire College this morning (July 22) held a celebration ceremony to mark its GC Zero project.

At Gloucester campus, the college switched on the full system and installed a commemorative time capsule.

Richard Graham, MP for Gloucester, cut the ribbon on the project. He said: "What we've seen this week is what extreme temperature is doing. It's changing everything, it's changing the way our energy and food security becomes more precarious. It's changing ways of life and making health problems for people.

"GlosCol is setting the example in the public sector and is leading the way. We'll also be able to share what they've done, how they did it, what they decided not to do and any mistakes they made with lots of other organisations, so we can all be inspired and excited about the net zero targets we've all got."

Gloucestershire College is the first college in England to drive decarbonisation, aiming to deliver net zero by 2030 and operate renewably and responsibly across its three campuses - in Cheltenham, Cinderford and Gloucester - including resources, facilities and transport links.

The college is actually on track to achieve its goal much sooner, thanks to the works which have taken place over the past year, with the installation of ground source heat pumps, solar panels and smart battery storage to enable it to move off grid and over to its own 100% renewable energy system.

Matthew Burgess, college principal, said: "The project is all about becoming carbon zero. There's a number of things involved. We've changed the heating from gas to ground source heat pumps, so in the car park there are 44 holes, 200 metres deep. There's about a mile of piping that takes air from under the ground, which keeps a certain temperature all year round, and then it pumps it into this chamber and we use electricity to boost the heating into the building.

"Electricity is more expensive than gas, so to offset that we've got about 1,500 solar panels on the roof and they will be providing fully carbon free electricity at source.

"At the moment, because it's summer, we're generating more electricity than we need so we've got a big battery to store the surplus electricity in and we can use that later when we need it or can release surplus back to the grid."

The project cost £5.5 million, with £2.7 million from the Government and the college funding the remainder. With heating and energy bills costing the college around £500,000-£600,000 per year, the payback on the project will be around six years.

Matthew Burgess continued: "We started the scheme for carbon reasons, but loads has changed with energy prices and now providing our own heat and electricity is suddenly commercially very worthwhile."

The project is setting a great example to the college's thousands of students that it is possible to make a difference and combat climate change. It will also help the college to support local businesses.

Matthew Burgess said: "We deliver skills around green technology, so to be involved first hand with the scheme is going to put us in a really good position to help businesses across the county make the same journey."