Following the successful debating session, delegates were invited to join a tour of Bicton’s EaRTH Centre project.  This project sees the conversion of two disused barns on Home Farm, part of Bicton College’s working farm, to create a renewable technologies training and conference centre.

Senior Project Officer at DR, Matt Parkins, formed part of the group and said:

“This was a really interesting visit as we had the opportunity to see the renewable energy technologies being installed into the farm buildings part way through their refurbishment. We were also able to closely look at the design features of the building such as the passive solar glazing and ventilation, with an opportunity to discuss these with the staff from the college. These Renewable Energy technologies will provide a demonstration of real installations being retro fitted to old buildings giving an insight into the problems encountered and successful methods to overcome such difficulties.

The Bicton EaRTH Centre is particularly interesting as they have chosen to refurbish old buildings rather than build from new. In order to meet our carbon reduction targets this is something many people in this country will need to start looking at.

The training areas at Bicton EaRTH Centre will also give excellent opportunities for people to learn about the effectiveness of a range of technologies and to gain first hand experience of them.

The tour also gave us the opportunity to see how the college has significantly reduced the energy consumption of the milking parlour and we were able to discuss their plans to install an anaerobic digestion plant to manage the large volume of potentially polluting waste and convert it into a source of energy.”

For more information, please visit www.bictonearth.co.uk/

Picture attached to show build for curved glazed roof to maximise solar gain.