Directive 2002/91EC of the European Parliament and Council, on the energy performance of buildings came into force on 4th January 2003 as part of a Europe wide initiative to cut carbon emissions. The legislation was due to be in place by 4th January 2006, but was delayed until 6th April 2006. The directive is made up of 15 articles, to date only articles 3 to 6 have been adopted, the remaining are still being ratified by government. The aim of the EPBD is to reduce the energy used in buildings, both commercial and domestic. Under the new directive, article 7 will require that owners and operators of non-domestic buildings carry out a professional energy rating assessment and produce a certificate when the property is being sold or let.
The directive requires that energy be measured in buildings by four main strategies:-
1) Improving standards for new buildings.
Building regulations Part L 1A & 2A 2006 have set higher standards for energy efficiency of new buildings, with challenging target CO2 emissions rating (TER) that buildings must achieve at planning stage before approval is granted and an actual as built buildings emissions rate BER) .
2) Higher standards for refurbishment of large buildings.
Part L 1B & 2B 2006 also requires that major new refurbishments / extensions comply with the reduced energy consumption of the fixed building services.
3) Introducing agreed measurements of relative energy performance.
The Simplified Building Energy Model (SBEM) has now been approved as the calculation tool for assessing the energy performance of new non-domestic buildings and is likely to be adopted for the older non-domestic building stock for certification purposes. The revised Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP2005) will continue to be used to determine the energy efficiency of domestic buildings.
4) Regular inspections and re-evaluations.
Articles 7 – 9 deal with the inspection of boilers, air conditioning and energy performance certificates and have yet to be agreed upon by central government.
Once legislation has been passed and a clear understanding of the certification process has been agreed Clouds will be expanding our services to include EPBD assessments and certification for existing buildings. The aim is also to offer further advice on the alternative low / zero carbon energy sources that would help to improve the energy rating.
