IES Blog

It is now only 3 days until the first and only World Green Building Week event taking place in Scotland this year. If you have been following IES across any of our social media then you will know that we have been hard at work preparing for the “Environmental Modelling for a Low Carbon Scotland” event. Well now the programme has been finalised, the wine has been ordered and the thought trees have been built (don’t worry, we’ll get to that later).

We have also started to receive feedback from the questions posted in our previous blog that previewed our event taking place next Monday (16th Sep). One delegate believes the main challenge facing sustainable building in Scotland is “the gap between design and operational targets and modelling.  Although IES can do operational modelling, Building Standards still claim that they specify all assets, whereas they only specify elements of the assets - the specification gap arises.  The emphasis of all those talking about projects they have done should be to discuss the actual energy in operation, not the design targets, I have yet to see an architect quote actual energy consumption.  Bring on DECs”

When responding to the question put forward by Urban Realm (How best can Scotland’s existing buildings be retro-fitted to meet 21st century environmental standards), the delegate answered - “The challenge for refurbishment is understanding the whole building. We need to learn the lessons across the new build to understand the limitations of a refurbishment”.

There will also be plenty of opportunity to express your views at the event itself. Dotted around the venue you will see five ‘Thought trees’ which ask key questions to get the debate flowing. It’s easy to get involved – write your views on the tags and hang them on the trees. Each ‘Tree’ poses a different question, with each of your answers forming a crucial part of the post event discussion.

Any other questions or issues you’d like to discuss? Let us know by using our #tag #LowCO2Scot11 or drop us a line at events@iesve.com.

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Tags:Building, DECs, design, Discussion, event, IES, Modeling, Scotland, Sustainability

Last month the UK-GBC set out to rally its members in support of their campaign to get the government to “fulfil its commitment made in March’s “Carbon Plan” and extend Display Energy Certificates (DECs) to Commercial buildings by 2012, using the Energy Bill as the vehicle to put down the necessary primary legislation”.

The first step of the campaign was to send an open letter to the Prime Minister, and other senior ministers, outlining the need for mandatory DECs for private sector buildings. You can read this letter here. The next step was for the UK-GBC to call on its members for their backing and a list of supporters was produced to reinforce the campaign. IES are very proud to be putting our name down in support of the UK-GBC’s efforts, and you can find a list of the other like minded organisations here.

Over the last few weeks there has been significant developments made as the Energy Bill reached the Committee stage. The UK-GBC and the British Property Federation have submitted evidence to the committee, provided the list of supporters and have been collaborating with MPs and other organisations to get this issue tabled as part of the Committee stage. A breakthrough came when Zac Goldsmith MP backed the campaign by tabling an amendment to the energy bill that would make DECs compulsory for commercial buildings, but there is still a long way to go to see if this campaign will be successful.

Our UK Division Head, Sarah Graham, had the following to say on the issue:
To meet our (the UK’s) C02 reduction targets existing building stock must be the priority.  Understanding and focusing on why buildings are not performing as they were designed to is key.  DECs when used in combination with EPC results can help highlight discrepancies and focus where further investigation is required.  DECs on their own can identify which buildings need a comprehensive energy review.  Going forward as well as rolling their use out more widely, linking DECs with legislation such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme should greatly enhance their effectiveness.

We will keep you posted with further news on this campaign as and when it happens.

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Tags:Building, DECs, IES

We have recently been informed by the CLG that the format of files used for non-domestic EPC and DEC lodgments is to change in 1 month’s time. Furthermore, there is no transition period planned – old EPC and DEC lodgment files will simply no longer be active after the switchover date.

All Accreditation Schemes will stop taking EPC submissions created by software using versions of SBEM/EPCGen earlier than the soon to be released v3.3c. This means that Accredited Energy Assessors will have to update their EPC and DEC software to a version able to produce the new xml lodgment files, even if they are in the middle of a project.

Energy Assessors need to plan ahead to make sure that they can maintain business continuity and minimize disruption, but the short timescale might mean that the new software is not available until right before the deadline. A new version of SBEM is due early April and IES will be working flat out to update its SBEM, DSM and DEC software in time. However, we are still waiting for the release of final details and anticipate that we will be left with a period of around 2 weeks (including Easter) to amend, test, gain CLG approval and distribute the new version to our users! We’re making every possible arrangement to ensure we meet this 25th April deadline.

The switchover date is pretty firmly set as Saturday 25th April.

IES have asked CLG for a transitional period and we hope that this will be accepted in order to allow our customers, and other Energy Assessors, to changeover at the time that suits them. However, initial discussions have not been promising on this front.

David McEwan – IES UK Director

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Tags:Accreditation, CLG, DECs, EPCs

In the UK this week The Energy Savings Trust announced that half of us would be greener if we had a bit more time in our day! To help us with this they have provided us with three useful tools to help us manage our time;

• The first is an “Energy Saving Clock” which allows you to choose the amount of time available and it throws up tasks that you could complete in that time.
• The other is the “Energy Saving House” that shows the savings that you can make in those all important pennies as well as CO₂ emissions.
• The third, which I think is the most valuable, is a new community site Britain Unplugged which allows people to discuss and share their ideas for energy savings, post videos and get hints and tips from their blog. Like an energy savers support group!

Also this week a bit of Display Energy Certificate spotting is taking place over at Building Magazine, after a disappointing start they have decided to encourage people to do their own spotting. A £20 Amazon Gift Voucher to the person who visit the most public buildings seeking DECs by Wednesday the 5th of November. Why not email sustainability@cmpi.biz to enter!

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Tags:Britain Unplugged, Building Magazine, DECs, Display Energy Certificate, The Energy Savings Trust