Energy
In 2024-25, Birkbeck’s energy use accounted for around 17.1% of our overall carbon footprint. As well as producing greenhouse gas emissions, energy costs a significant amount of money each year, so reducing our energy use has positive impacts in multiple areas.
Birkbeck’s energy comes from four different sources:
- Gas used to heat our buildings and produce hot water
- Electricity purchased from the grid
- Electricity generated onsite (we currently have one small installation of solar PV at 373 Euston Road)
- The Bloomsbury District Heat Network provides heat to our new Student Central building
A key element of decarbonising our buildings will be making them more energy efficient to reduce the overall amount of energy we use.
We have seen a significant reduction in energy use, particularly gas consumption and heat from the District Heat Network, in 2024-25. While some of this is attributable to the efforts of our Estates and Facilities Team making changes to how energy is managed across the estate, we are investigating our billing to ensure all data is accurate as it is unusual to see such a significant decrease in a single year. We expect to see gas consumption increase in 2025-26 before seeing a steadier decrease in consumption in the future.
| Figures in kWh (Aug-Jul) | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Total gas use |
4,105,232 |
4,548,227 |
3,767,279 |
1,899,062 |
Total electricity use |
6,717,981 |
6,663,997 |
5,958,903 |
5,899,714 |
Electricity generated onsite |
24,000 |
24,000 |
24,000 |
24,000 |
Total district heat network |
202,395 |
415,270 |
321,392 |
178,485 |
Total energy use |
11,049,608 |
11,651,494 |
10,047,574 |
8,001,261 |
Change since previous year |
N/A |
601,886 |
-1,603,920 |
-2,046,313 |
Percentage change since previous year |
N/A |
5.5% |
-13.8% |
-20.4% |
Birkbeck’s Heat Decarbonisation Plan and Energy and Carbon Management Plan outline the ways in which we will aim to improve the thermal efficiency of our buildings to reduce gas use, and explain some of the interventions that can be taken to reduce electricity use across our campus.
Energy certificates
We produce Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for our buildings annually. These certificates show the energy performance of a building over the last 12 months, based on actual energy consumption data.
We also have several Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) in place across our campuses. An EPC is only updated every 10 years unless there is a significant change in building use or building fabric. EPCs create a model demonstrating how well a building is expected to retain heat and use energy, and make recommendations for improvements.
Our DECs and EPCs can be found inside the main entrance to each building, or they can be searched by postcode on the government’s find an energy certificate website.