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The County Council has been involved in many projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions produced by buildings that it maintains. These include the ground-source heating system at the new Redhill Primary School and the woodfuel burner at County Hall itself.

Now The Chase has joined the green revolution by taking part in a pioneering exercise together with the County Council and Droitwich-based heating equipment firm Nu-Way. The school's boilers, which were 20 years old, were last year replaced with three new boilers with a brand new oil tank and dual fuel burners capable of running on gas or oil.

Nu-Way have modified the burners to accept a range of bio-fuels. The first phase of the trial involves running one boiler on a 20 per cent renewable oil blend, which will immediately reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent and at no additional fuel cost.

Phil Harris, County Council Chief Engineer, said:

?We're already seeing bio-diesel becoming available for road vehicles, and we want to see if it can be used economically in heating boilers in the council's schools. Working with The Chase will give us important operational experience so we can make sure new greener fuels have no long-term impacts on the reliability of the schools' heating boilers.?

Peter Renger, Deputy Head at The Chase, added:

?We are delighted that The Chase has been chosen as the pilot school for this initiative. It fits well with our existing sustainability agenda, which includes a 'green corridor' of coppice and continuous hedge, and the biodiverse environment and wetland area which we will develop to the west of the new Science Block. The bio-oil installation will be used by students as part of their studies, to participate in measuring fuel use against outside temperature, and to calculate reductions in CO2 emissions.?

The County Council will run one boiler on bio-diesel throughout this coming winter. It also hopes to try higher percentage blends of bio-oil - up to 100 per cent carbon free - as the technology develops.

If all of the schools maintained by the County Council switched their oil-fired burners to use 20 per cent bio-diesel, it would reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by more than 100 tonnes a year.