Students win green energy battle

The campus becomes one of seven in the UK to use renewable power

Students are celebrating after winning a two-year campaign to get their university to switch to green energy.

Reading University will now use wind and water-generated electricity, after pressure from a student group.

More than 1,000 students signed a petition by Reading Campaigns Forum calling for their campus to go green.

Student Tom Chance said: "After two years of campaigning, we are ecstatic that the university has made this huge step to helping the environment."

Reading University uses 40m kilowatts of energy a year and becomes the seventh university in Britain to switch to an eco-friendly supplier.

Mr Chance added: "This really shows what student activists can achieve and we hope it will encourage more students to get involved."

More than 90 wind farms have been set up in Britain since the first opened in Cornwall in 1991, with 2003 a record year for investment.