Cost the decarbonisation path before you commit to it.
Electrification, heat recovery, heat pumps, on-site generation and fuel switching all interact, and the cheap path and the clean path are rarely the same. With UK ETS carbon-price exposure on one side and capital schemes on the other, Sympheny models the site as one multi-energy system and optimises the pathway on cost against CO₂ before any capital moves.
An industrial site's vectors, electricity, heat, hydrogen, process demand, modelled and optimised as one system.
Why industrial decarbonisation is hard to cost.
The options interact, and so do the constraints
Electrify a process, recover waste heat, add a heat pump or on-site generation, switch a fuel: each option changes the economics of the others, and each runs into process constraints. The most attractive path almost always couples vectors, and that interaction is exactly what variant-by-variant comparison cannot capture.
ESOS finds the opportunities, it does not size the system
The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme mandates audits that surface where energy is used and where it could be saved. Turning that into a costed decarbonisation pathway is a different job: sizing electrification, heat recovery and on-site generation against real hourly profiles, where capital-heavy assets only pay under the right operating pattern.
The board wants a number against carbon cost
Decarbonisation investment competes for capital, and UK Emissions Trading Scheme exposure and Climate Change Agreement commitments put a price on getting it wrong. Leadership needs the CO₂ reduction, the life-cycle cost against the current fossil baseline and the payback: evidence a spreadsheet of separate calculations struggles to defend.
Proven on real industrial sites.
A coupled industrial-and-residential green-hydrogen study: 60% lower CO₂ at up to 26% lower life-cycle cost, with on-site hydrogen produced at a cost comparable to today's diesel.
Read case studyA port logistics site modelled across 16 variants, where on-site generation, energy-sharing and storage cut energy cost 20–25% against the status quo.
Read case studyEvery vector and technology, co-optimised against the baseline.
Process and building demand, electrification, heat recovery, heat pumps, on-site generation, storage and fuel switching all enter one mixed-integer optimisation at hourly resolution. A fossil benchmark anchors the comparison, so every option is measured against the same reference on cost and carbon, within the site's process constraints.
Electricity, heat, hydrogen and process, in one system.
Model the industrial loads alongside on-site generation, storage and any coupled site, a neighbouring residential area, a shared thermal network, so waste heat and surplus power are put to use rather than lost. The optimiser exploits the coupling instead of treating each vector alone.
- Process heat, electricity, hydrogen and mobility fuels modelled together
- Waste heat from electrolysers and fuel cells reused across the site
- Coupled sites linked by a shared thermal or electrical network
Electrolysers, fuel cells and storage, sized on real profiles.
Hydrogen production, storage and end-uses are sized against hourly on-site generation and demand, not annual averages. The engine finds the configuration where the capital actually pays, including how much of a diesel or gas load it is worth displacing.
- Electrolyser, fuel cell, H₂ and methane storage sized at hourly resolution
- Mobility and process fuel demand met from on-site production where it pays
- Capital-heavy assets sized on real operating patterns, not averages
Measured against the fossil baseline, stress-tested.
Configure a fossil benchmark: diesel, oil boilers, grid power. The optimiser returns several Pareto-optimal designs against it in minutes. Test the recommended path against energy-price and demand futures so the case holds when costs move.
- Fossil benchmark anchors every cost and CO₂ comparison
- Several Pareto-optimal designs returned, not a single point
- Sensitivity across price and demand scenarios in the same model
For the economic buyer, that means a defensible decarbonisation case: the CO₂ reduction, the life-cycle cost against the fossil baseline and the most attractive configuration, the evidence base behind an Industrial Energy Transformation Fund application and a UK ETS exposure you can stand behind.
Sympheny covers feasibility and concept design: settling the technology mix, the heat recovery and electrification, and the business case for an industrial site. Detailed process and plant engineering, and the ESOS audit itself, are separate steps in tools and teams built for them. Most of what decides whether a decarbonisation investment proceeds is settled at the concept stage.
Built for the sector-coupled industrial decision.
Plenty of tools size one technology. Sympheny is built for the question an industrial site has to answer: which coupled system decarbonises the site, at what cost against the baseline.
Not a single-technology calculator
Electrolyser or PV sizing tools answer one asset well. Sympheny co-optimises the coupled system, generation, hydrogen, storage, process, so the comparison is consistent.
Not a long-run market model
Market and dispatch platforms model national systems over decades. Sympheny works at the site scale a decarbonisation project is actually planned at, with the technologies as explicit decisions.
Built around the optimisation, run in the browser
A MILP engine sits at the core, run in a cloud platform an engineer uses directly, returning Pareto-optimal designs in minutes with exportable data.
Questions industrial teams ask.
What is industrial site decarbonisation?
Industrial site decarbonisation is the process of cutting a site's emissions by changing how it produces and uses energy: electrifying process heat, recovering waste heat, adding heat pumps and on-site generation, and switching fuels. Because these options interact and run into process constraints, Sympheny models them together against a fossil baseline to find the configuration that cuts carbon at the lowest life-cycle cost, on the path to the 2050 net zero target.
How does this fit with ESOS and UK ETS?
The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme requires mandatory audits that find where energy is used and where it could be saved, and the UK Emissions Trading Scheme puts a price on the carbon a site still emits. Sympheny picks up where an ESOS audit leaves off: it turns identified opportunities into a costed, optimised pathway, sizing electrification, heat recovery and on-site generation against hourly profiles, with the CO₂ reduction quantified so the UK ETS exposure is part of the case.
How do you compare decarbonisation options for an industrial site?
The reliable way is to optimise the whole system against a common baseline rather than cost options one at a time, because electrification, heat recovery and fuel switching change the economics of each other. Sympheny evaluates generation, storage, heat recovery and process demand together at hourly resolution and returns several Pareto-optimal designs against the fossil reference, each with its cost and CO₂.
How does Sympheny help decarbonise an industrial site?
Sympheny is a cloud-based multi-energy optimisation platform. It builds a digital twin of the site's energy system, sizes coupled technologies including heat pumps, heat recovery and storage, and returns Pareto-optimal designs against a fossil baseline with exportable data. Engineering teams use it to turn a feasibility question into a defensible, costed decarbonisation case, the evidence base behind an Industrial Energy Transformation Fund application, in days.
Related pages and proof.
See your decarbonisation path costed.
Bring the site to a demo and watch the coupled system optimised against the baseline, or start a free trial and build the first concept yourself.