The European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings is going to be here sooner than you think. We look at the schedule, and how the directive could become part of UK law.
Three years from the end of November 2002, the European Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings will have to become integral to UK legislation relating to the built environment. And the construction industry will be expected to have many of the directive's key provisions in place.

No one knows exactly how the energy performance directive might eventually shape up, but there are some ideas on how it might become part of existing regulations. There is an energy White Paper set to make its appearance in early 2003 which will clarify issues relating to energy over the coming years. The White Paper will doubtless take the European directive into account. Speaking at a conference early this month, Paul Everill of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) said that implementation of the directive might also be achieved by secondary legislation under the 1984 Buildings Act. Other existing primary legislation could also be used in this way, such as rules relating to property ownership. New UK regulations can also be made under the European Communities Act.

Part L of the Building Regulations will doubtless play a key part in transposing the European rules into UK law. In fact, it is thanks to the standards already set by Part L, that the UK is further down the building energy road than many other member states. Part L is still under review all the way to 2008. Stage two of the review has just been completed and the final two stages will start in 2003. Stage three will include introduction of any new measures which may be required if the ECA is proving insufficient. And Stage four is a further comprehensive review of all possibilities. According to Everill, it's more than likely that the directive will come into stages three and four.

This amounts to a rough outline of how the directive could embraced by UK legislation. However, there are some particulars within the directive which are causing concern among engineers. The main bones of contention are Articles 8 and 9 of the directive which require regular inspection of boilers and air conditioning systems respectively. Member states are required, in both cases, to 'lay down the necessary measures to establish regular inspection' of the equipment. One of the main problems the industry has with this point is the sheer scale of the operation.

According to Terry Wyatt, President-Elect of CIBSE, there are far too few qualified engineers to carry out this task. At the conference he pointed out that in the UK there are around 33 000 office buildings over 1000 m2. Forty per cent of these have climate control systems, making 14 000 of these systems to be tested. In the case of gas-fired boilers, there are 170 000 liable for checking. Fortunately, these are already subject to annual tests, so the extra workload would not be so large.

However, the conditions of the tests do not make for easy implementation on the ground. Tests must be carried out on the same day, at full and part load. A methodology must be found to achieve this. Wyatt also points out that manufacturers will have to start offering more information on their products. "They don't have current records of fall off of performance with age. Manufacturers need to get these figures," he commented at a recent conference.

From the property owners' point of view, there is also an issue with the idea of certification of buildings (Article 7). New buildings will have to have energy certificates by the end of 2006. But so will existing buildings which change hands – and not just ownership, but also occupation. For landlords this means that a change of tenant requires an energy certificate. According to the directive, the onus is on the landlord to deal with this. Danny Clark of Prudential Property Investment Portfolio pointed out that this leaves open some difficult questions about who bears the cost for certification. He also pointed out that there is within the Directive no requirement for a commitment to improvement of energy efficiency.

The Directive is by no means perfect. However the industry has a simple choice – ignore it until the last minute, or use the head start given to us by Part L and other recent initiatives, to be ahead of the rest of Europe in grasping the opportunity to make huge savings.

Source

Building Sustainable Design