Energy Certificates - the law

From 6 April 2008 energy performance certificates will be needed when commercial buildings are built, sold or rented. Public buildings throughout England and Wales will need to display an energy certificate from October 2008 (similar legislation will also apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland).

These certificates must be produced by an accredited energy assessor. There are two types of energy certificate:

• The Energy Performance Certificate, which is required for all buildings when they are constructed, sold or let.
• The Display Energy Certificate, will be required for public buildings and those occupied by public authorities which have a total useful area greater than 1000m2 and provide a public service to a large number of people and therefore frequently visited by those people (eg a school, hospital, government or local authority building).  These will show the actual energy usage of a building and will need to be displayed from 1 October 2008.
• In addition new regulations also require that all air conditioning systems above 250 kW are inspected by January 2009. Those over 12kW must be inspected by 4 January 2011. This work must be carried out by an accredited inspector.

The Government recently announced transitional arrangements for buildings already on the market at 6 April; any building which is on the market before then and remains on the market afterwards will need an Energy Performance Certificate by 1 October at the latest.

It is not aniticipated that this will make a huge difference to the number of certificates required.