Plan the whole campus as one energy system.
A university, hospital or public-estate campus is many buildings of different ages sharing central plant and heat networks. Choosing the heat, power and storage mix across them is a multi-energy optimisation, and a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme bid needs it costed and evidenced. Sympheny models and optimises exactly that.
A campus decomposed into energy hubs on a real map, with networks and on-site supply modelled as one system.
Why campus concepts are hard to get right.
Building-by-building misses the system
A campus is a small estate: many buildings, mixed ages, shared central plant and heat networks running between them. Plan each building on its own and you lose what makes the site efficient, the heat moving between buildings and the storage that serves the whole campus. The savings live in the connections, and they only appear when the buildings are modelled together.
A PSDS bid needs a costed, evidenced concept
The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, delivered by Salix Finance, funds heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency for councils, NHS Trusts, universities and schools, with capital available across the current phase. A bid stands or falls on a credible, costed concept: sized technologies, the network across the site and the carbon saved against the baseline.
A net zero target needs evidence the board will back
The NHS has a statutory commitment to reach net zero for the emissions it controls by 2040, and universities carry their own targets. Estates committees and funders want to see the target is reachable, at what cost and against what baseline. A roadmap nobody outside the team can interrogate does not unlock the budget.
Proven on real campuses.
26 buildings decomposed into 12 hubs across three states, confirming a roadmap toward the campus's 2030 climate-neutral target: about 10% CO₂ already achievable and a further 25% in the planned state.
Read case studyA self-sufficient concept for nine campus facilities, with Agri-PV, a biodigester, methane and hydrogen storage, sized together for full energy autarky at low life-cycle cost.
Read case studyEvery building, network and source in one optimisation.
The buildings, the heat networks between them, the central plant and the on-site generation and storage all sit inside the same mixed-integer optimisation, solved hourly across a reference year. The campus is modelled as it behaves, one connected system, not a stack of separate building studies.
Buildings become hubs, the campus becomes a system.
Group the buildings into energy hubs on a real GIS map and draw the thermal networks between them. Surplus heat from one part of the campus can serve another; the optimiser decides which connections are worth building from measured length and cost.
- Dozens of buildings grouped into hubs on a GIS basemap
- Multi-temperature and ambient networks between hubs modelled explicitly
- Heat shared between buildings rather than each running its own plant
Generation, storage and sector coupling, sized together.
PV, heat pumps, CHP, boreholes, batteries and seasonal storage all enter as candidates, with seasonal performance and hourly resource limits built in. Where a campus runs vehicles or processes, those vectors are coupled in so the whole demand is met from the optimal mix.
- PV, heat pumps, CHP, boreholes, batteries and seasonal storage as candidates
- Seasonal COP and hourly resource limits respected, not annual averages
- Heat, electricity and fuels coupled where the campus needs them
A staged, stress-tested path to the target.
Compare the current state, an optimised current state and the planned future state in one model, then test the recommended roadmap against price and demand futures. The result is a phased concept anchored against verified operation, not a single optimistic line.
- Initial, current and planned states compared side by side
- Build order and phasing returned by the optimiser
- Sensitivity across many price and demand scenarios
For the economic buyer, that means a PSDS-fundable concept: a costed, staged path to the campus target, what it takes over its life against the baseline, and the evidence base a Salix application needs.
Sympheny covers feasibility and concept design: the stage where the technology mix, the network across the campus and the phasing get settled, and where a PSDS bid is won or lost. Detailed hydraulic and building-level engineering is a separate step in tools built for it. Most of what determines whether a campus roadmap gets funded is decided before that stage.
Built for the campus-scale decision.
Plenty of tools touch parts of a campus concept. Sympheny is built for the decision an estates team has to defend: which system to build across the whole site, and in what order.
Not a single-building tool
Building energy models answer one building well. Sympheny optimises the buildings, the networks between them and the shared supply together, so the campus-level savings actually surface.
Not a spreadsheet roadmap
A spreadsheet can list measures but cannot resolve how they interact at hourly resolution. Sympheny co-optimises supply, networks and phasing, then stress-tests the result.
Built around the optimisation, run in the browser
A MILP engine sits at the core, run in a cloud platform an engineer uses directly, with client-ready outputs. The rigour is there without a bespoke modelling project.
Questions campus teams ask.
What is a campus energy concept?
A campus energy concept is a plan for supplying heat, cooling and electricity to a group of buildings on one site as a connected system, rather than building by building. It sets out which on-site generation, storage and networks to build, what they cost over their life and how much carbon they save. Sympheny models the buildings, networks and central plant together so the concept can be optimised as one, which is the evidence a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme bid needs.
Can Sympheny support a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme bid?
Yes. The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, delivered by Salix Finance, funds heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency for councils, NHS Trusts, universities and schools, and a bid turns on a credible, costed concept. Sympheny produces that evidence base: the technology mix and the network across the campus sized and compared on cost against CO₂, with the underlying data exportable for the application.
How do you decarbonise a university or NHS campus?
Campus decarbonisation usually combines shared heat networks, on-site renewable generation, storage and staged building renovation. The hard part is that these interact, so deciding them one at a time tends to lock in a sub-optimal system. Sympheny co-optimises the supply mix, the networks and the build order in one model at hourly resolution, then tests the roadmap against price and demand futures. For NHS estates, that path has to reach net zero for directly controlled emissions by 2040.
How does Sympheny help plan a campus?
Sympheny is a cloud-based multi-energy optimisation platform. It models a campus as buildings connected by heat networks, sizes on-site generation and storage, and returns a Pareto front of cost against CO₂ with a staged build order and exportable data. Engineering teams and estates use it to move from a brief to a defensible, fundable concept in days rather than weeks.
Related pages and proof.
See your campus modelled as one system.
Bring the site to a demo and watch the buildings, networks and supply optimised together, or start a free trial and build the first concept yourself.