The New Year saw an update to the legislation covering energy performance certificates (EPCs) and displayed energy certificates (DECs). Proposals were revealed in December and implemented in January, giving little time for building owners and managers to get up to speed. These requirements are now in place, so if you haven’t acted you might already be in breach of the new regulations!
The key points of the new EPC and DEC requirements are summarised below:
- Buildings larger than 500m2 which are frequently visited by members of the public must now display an EPC where one exists. It is the occupiers’ duty to display this and not the owner’s.
- Public sector buildings larger than 500m2 must now display a DEC. This is a reduction in the threshold from 1000m2.
- From July 2015 the DEC threshold will reduce to 250m2.
- Buildings larger than 1000m2 must update their DEC annually. Buildings less than 1000m2 must update theirs every 10 years.
- All building marketing material must now display the EPC rating. The requirement to include the front page of the EPC in any marketing literature has now been removed.
It is unclear why the Government has back-tracked on their original plan to roll out DECs to all commercial buildings, which show actual energy usage, and replace this with EPCs, which show only theoretical energy consumption. The purpose of DECs is to allow the public to see that buildings they either use or fund are being managed efficiently based on actual energy billing data. With this in mind it seems a backward step to omit them in lieu of a model where no factual data is required, particularly as the provision of DEC’s for commercial buildings was supported by the British Property Federation (BPF) and other bodies in the construction industry.
In addition, allowing DECs to be updated every 10 years means that the stimulus for improving operational management is also removed. Is this change for the sake of change? In a time when the goalposts of carbon compliance are ever-moving, it is not yet clear how these changes will help the UK meet carbon targets that currently seem to be slipping out of reach.
For more information contact Phil Grice: