The first renewable energy scheme in Scotland to draw heat from a river is set to be installed by the University of Glasgow in a bid to lower the university's heating bill by one-quarter.

The revolutionary technology, which has separately been pioneered by Glasgow firm Star Renewable Energy and has been successfully installed in lakes, rivers and estuaries in Scandinavia and Japan, would see a heat pump installed two metres below the surface of the Clyde or Kelvin rivers where latent heat from the sun keeps the temperature of the water between 8C and 10C all year round.

A small proportion of the river water would be fed through the pump where around two degrees of heat in the water would be harvested using heat exchangers and the cooler water would then be pumped back into the river.

Heat from the exchangers would be transferred to condensers which would boost the low-grade heat to 45C or higher using a process of reverse refrigeration. The resultant hot water would then be piped around 30 university buildings along with heat from other sources.

Robert Kilpatrick, the university's assistant director of estates, told the Sunday Herald that the project is in its "very early stages" and that a decision to press ahead was dependent on completion of a feasibility study later this year.

The university is replacing the network of heat pipes that runs between the largest buildings of the university's west end campus. Gas-fired boilers are used to power the district heating system and will be used to fire the new system, but the university is examining how greener sources of heat - including biofuel, biomass and heat pumps - could be added to the mix in the future.

The UK's first water-sourced heat pump was installed below the Thames in southwest London earlier this year. The system provides 150 homes, a 140-room hotel and a conference centre at Richmond Park with hot water for radiators, showers and taps, saving 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere each year.

A conference on harnessing heat from rivers at the University of Glasgow last week heard that Star Renewable Energy had successfully installed a £5 million water-sourced pump in the Norwegian city of Drammen in 2010. Since then, the scheme has transferred 150,000,000kWh of clean energy from the seawater in the nearby fjord to the city's residents and businesses.

According to David Pearson, director of Star Renewable Energy, the Clyde has the potential to provide heat for half a million homes. "There are no real technical or financial barriers to installing this technology in most rivers or lakes," he said. "The biggest barrier is that people are not aware that this is an option."

Paul Younger, professor of energy engineering at the University of Glasgow, told the conference that most of Scotland's main rivers, including the Tweed, the Forth and the Tay, could be tapped for their heat.

Scotland's firths - such as the Solway, Forth, Moray, Clyde and Lorne - as well as the country's freshwater and sea lochs are also potential heat sources for the new technology. Other sources include the country's abundant aquifers and flooded mines.