The £7m Horncastle Public Sector Hub is a flagship example of sustainable public sector infrastructure. It brings together Boston College’s further education facilities and East Lindsey District Council’s new headquarters in a shared, energy-efficient building designed to achieve Net Zero Carbon in Operation (NZCiO).
As part of the customer's brief to significantly cut energy consumption, the Horncastle Public Sector Hub delivers a 75% reduction compared to its former headquarters at Tedder Hall in Manby, which had served the council for 44 years before their move in January 2023.
Our trademarked Energy Synergy® has been in place since handover to analyse building performance with the Hub consistently outperforming its energy use targets. Live performance data available via a real-time dashboard has enabled the project team to validate design assumptions, identify optimisation opportunities, and support the council to establish a clear pathway to achieve NZCiO.
Designing for Efficiency and Net Zero Carbon in Operation
We worked with the customer on a design for Horncastle Public Sector Hub that could be cost-neutral within just eight years of operation.
To support this aim the design includes smart features, such as self-adjusting lighting, and generates renewable energy via a PV array on the roof to achieve optimal efficiency. We also supported the customer to take a fabric-first approach to this project, selecting materials with a low U value to achieve high levels of insulation in the building. This drives energy efficiency by keeping warm air inside in winter and cold air inside in summer reducing demand from building occupants for heating and cooling.
Integrated Monitoring from Day One
From project handover, Energy Synergy® was fully integrated with the Horncastle Hub's building management system, enabling precise, real-time monitoring of energy performance across all major systems. This provided detailed sub-metering of key loads, including small power, cooling, and lighting.
The system’s granular data enabled rapid identification and resolution of under performing systems and adjustment of controls to reflect actual usage patterns. Immediate wins included reducing standby power, disabling cooling in unoccupied spaces, and refining lighting schedules based on occupancy. Building on these successes, the team is now exploring advanced strategies such as predictive HVAC controls, load shifting, and demand response.
The chart shows that the building has consumed less than the target set by the TM54 model almost every month. Some of these savings were from reduced server capacity due to working patterns on the site. However, even with adjusting the TM54 target so that the target correctly matches recorded server consumption, there are substantial savings.
Exceeding Expectations with Energy Synergy®
Energy Synergy® gave facilities management teams instant access to performance data, automated alerts for anomalies, and monthly reports benchmarked against TM54 design predictions. Crucially, the process was collaborative—facilities teams from both Boston College and East Lindsey District Council received training, participated in regular review meetings, and worked together to implement targeted improvements.
In its first year, the building consistently consumed less energy than predicted with real-time data revealing opportunities for further optimisation. Energy Synergy® identified primary energy savings of 62.5 MWh/year, with an additional 23 MWh/year achieved through operational optimisations. These savings equate to an annual carbon reduction of 17.4 tCO₂e—the equivalent of driving 75,000 miles in a petrol-powered family car.
The Energy Synergy® process is now helping the council design the solar photovoltaic array needed to offset the remaining emissions and achieve net zero carbon in operation at Horncastle Hub.
Sam Robbens - Senior Technical Officer, East Lindsey District Council, said:
“Energy Synergy has given an excellent insight to explore how the building is performing against its design targets, tracking energy consumption in specific areas of the building.
"This process has enabled us to understand usage patterns, potential inefficiencies and cost drivers to identify a continual programme of optimisations and deliver further monetary and carbon savings for the Authority.
"The blend of extensive platform data reporting coupled with expert consultancy interpretation, guidance and potential implementation recommendations demonstrates the energy synergy process goes beyond just data capture.”
