The creation of a £25 million green energy centre by St Andrews University will come closer to fruition next week if councillors give their backing.
It is hoped the revival of the old paper mill in Guardbridge as a sustainable power and research campus will help make the Fife seat of learning the first carbon neutral university in the UK.
A biomass plant would provide hot water to heat and cool the university’s buildings four miles away at St Andrews.
The new campus, with teaching and research facilities, would also create jobs and bring new life to the abandoned site, which has lain largely empty since Curtis Fine Papers closed in 2008.
Together with the six wind turbines the university is to build near Boarhills, the green energy centre would allow it to reduce its soaring energy bill.
The university says that cost poses a major threat to investment in teaching and research.
Councillors on Fife Council’s north-east planning committee will be asked to approve the plan in principle next Wednesday.
In a report for the committee, planner William Shand said: “The university has an aim of becoming the first energy carbon neutral university in the UK.
“This site has the potential to assist in this aim, both in providing land for renewable energy initiatives that can provide clean energy for the university and in the research and advancement of future technologies.
“The proposed biomass energy centre area of the site would supplement other carbon reducing projects of the university, including the Kenly Wind Farm and building improvements undertaken to reduce energy demands.
“The university also aims to promote the site for use by private business and industry which complements the principles of the site, as well as providing a teaching campus for students in this industry.”
The biomass boiler would burn locally-sourced woodchips to feed a district heating water system for the university estate.
An underground network of pipes would carry the hot water to St Andrews’ North Haugh and on to the university’s various buildings, including laboratories and student residences.
Industrial, storage and office space would also be created at the front of the old mill on Main Street, alongside the Eden Brewery, which opened in 2012.