I am going to talk about recent change to the Law concerning display energy certificates. Since the 9th of January public buildings with a floor area between 500 – 1000m2 require the Display Energy Certificate (DEC).
Such a certificate has a validity of ten years. Previously it was only larger public buildings with a floor area of a thousand square meters which require a display energy certificate and this requirement remains. A Display Energy Certificate for these larger buildings has a validity of one year and must be renewed annually.
If a Display Energy Certificate is required for a building, the building must also have an advisory report which tells you how the energy used in the cost of the building may be reduced. The validity of an Recommendation Report is currently seven years and maybe increase to ten years for these smaller buildings.
A Property Manager or an Energy Manager must arrange for a Display Energy Certificate and an Recommendation Report to be produced for these smaller buildings down to five hundred square meters, such buildings might include a community hall, a school building or block, a sports pavilion or a smaller office.
The government is allowing a reasonable transition period but to be safe a manager should start the process of obtaining these certificates. Whereas sites maybe such like a secondary school has two or more buildings which are not connected by heating corridor then each building over five hundred square meters will require a separate energy certificate. For the time being certificates for these smaller buildings will say that the certificate is valid for one year whereas in fact it is valid for ten years. The government software will be changing in due course to reflect this.
With the increasing cost of energy and pressure on budgets decks do provide a useful tool for reducing the overall cost on an outgoing for an organisation. If a building has a poor display energy certificate grade say an F or a G and you have achieved savings in that building you may wish to renew the certificate and this can be done at anytime.
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NOTE: Since the article was originally published, we now have confirmation that Recommendation Reports for the smaller sites (500-1000m2) will be valid for 10 years.