E-newsletter March 2019
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to the March edition of our CIBSE Certification newsletter.
PEPA Conference 2019
It was good to see some of you at the Future of DECs and EPCs PEPA Conference last week, on 27 February, which provided some useful insights from senior Civil Servants from both BEIS and MHCLG despite being rather too heavily focussed on domestic EPC issues.
I will be asking the other schemes to consider whether we might have a separate Non-Domestic Conference in future or separate strands if not.
The main headlines from the conference include:
Confirmation from MHCLG that they intend to fully implement the requirements of the 3rd EPB Directive (2018), regardless of the outcome with BREXIT, as it is consistent with Government Policy on carbon reduction. Some of this will be done via Building Regulations as part of the 2019 review, and that BEIS are trialling enforcement strategies for MEES which should in turn improve compliance with EPC requirements.
Collectively PEPA sent a fairly strong message that the triggers for having an EPC need to be improved, for example, although a 10 year validity period may be fine for EPB regulations, making investment decisions on up to 10 year old information is probably not.
Find out more information on the work that PEPA are doing on your behalf.
ESOS 2019
We have had some feedback from the Environment Agency on the ESOS report market in December 2015. It shows our ESOS Lead Assessors in a very good light in terms of both market share and market spread. If you have been thinking of re-engaging for Phase 2, I hope that these statistics will encourage you. Whilst writing, could I draw your attention to some new guidance published by the Environment Agency.
Although there have been no changes to the Regulations, and therefore no significant change in the Guidance on the ESOS Regulations, this latest publication does provide some answers to frequently asked questions and demonstrates some clearer thinking on things like the use of DECs. If you are using DECs, you cannot re-use DECs used last time, even if the DEC and/or the Advisory report are still valid for EPBD purposes.
CPD
Thanks to everyone that responded to our requests to update their CPD records, the post-audit suspensions that did happen in mid-February were the smallest number since records began. Please find the time to keep your records up to date so that things go even more smoothly next year.
Kind regards,
Professor Andrew Geens
BEng (Hons) PhD CEng FCIBSE
Head of CIBSE Certification