Energy Performance Certificates: expected role in assessing energy efficiency in buildings soon.
Have you ever bought, sold, or rented a house? You might elicit an Energy Performance Certificate.
The energy certification of buildings is a sort of identity card for a building, having two goals:
- For a client (homeowner, a dweller, etc.), it provides information on the energy performance of buildings through an energy classification system;
- For a building expert (engineer, architect, energy assessor, but also researcher, etc.), it promotes energy efficiency by identifying methodologies for calculating the energy performance of buildings.
This document is mandatory in each EU Country when it comes to buying, selling, renting, or even asking for a bank loan to renovate a whole building or a building unit. After years of adoption at the EU level, the methodology behind its calculation may differ among countries. Besides, its adoption in EU Countries has not fostered enough of the desired awareness among building owners and end-users on improving energy efficiency and sustainability of buildings.
How to support EPC
In light of the European Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) recast (under inter-institutional negotiation by the EU bodies), as well as several R&D projects, the policy direction is to promote market-ready tools and software for building assessors to achieve improved EPC reliability and comparability among building assets and reach a more homogeneous scheme in Europe. This implies counting on reliable software for on-site data collection, suites for automatic advanced data elaborations, and monitoring of additional data on weather/climate, indoor air quality, and thermal comfort, to mention a few examples.
This is due to a user-centric approach that is currently inspiring both innovative EPCs and supporting software and procedures. Findings have proven that an iterative process between the assessor and the client favors a richer data collection: human behavior patterns can greatly influence how a building is used and hence how the energy of the building is consumed.
A last key novelty from the EPBD (under negotiation) on the EPC domain consists of the inclusion of a renovation roadmap in the certificate. This gives indications to the building owner or tenant on the type of intervention required to reach a certain class of building energy performance.
All these features help to have EPCs that are understandable and used by the same owners and tenants, so they can fully be engaged on tangible pathways to efficient energy retrofit.
Join our journey with SmarterEPC and discover how we will foster the adoption of EPCs and their suggestions for having more energy-efficient buildings!
