Display Energy Certificates must be prominently displayed in any public building, to ensure that staff and visitors alike know how energy efficient the building is.
This applies to police buildings, NHS buildings, schools, and public buildings over 1000m2, amongst other things. They are designed to promote energy efficiency in people seeing the notices and to allow the public to see the local authorities to prove to the residents that they are implementing environmentally-friendly practices.
It should be noted that it is a legal requirement to display these notices, and it has been since 2008. If a notice is not displayed, it will result in a fine. They must also be renewed on a yearly basis, in order to keep the public informed about how well the local authority is doing.
DECs have been introduced by the government to raise public awareness of energy use and to inform visitors to public buildings about the energy use of a building. DECs provide an energy rating of the building from A to G, where A is very efficient and G is the least efficient and are based on the actual amount of metered energy used by the building over a period of 12 months.
Buildings requiring a Display Energy Certificate
A DEC and advisory report are required for buildings with a total useful floor area over 1,000m2 that are occupied in whole or part by public authorities and by institutions providing public services to a large number of persons and therefore frequently visited by those persons.
For the purposes of the regulations, a building is defined as, ‘a roofed construction having walls, for which energy is used to condition the indoor climate, and a reference to a building includes a reference to a part of a building which has been designed or altered to be used separately
For a building to fall within the requirement for a DEC it must:-
- have a roof and walls; and
- use energy to condition the indoor climate. This is the case where the building has any of the following fixed services: heating, mechanical ventilation or air conditioning
A building can either be:
- the whole of a building; or
- part of a building, where the part is designed or altered to be used separately
Only buildings, with a total useful floor area greater than 1000m2, occupied either by a public authority or an institution providing a public service (referred to as relevant institutions) to large number of people and therefore frequently visited by those persons are affected by this legislation.
Private organisations, including those that may share a building with a relevant institution, do not need to display a DEC, but may elect to do so on a voluntary basis.
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