Building Standards technical handbook 2017: non-domestic buildings

Mandatory Standard

Standard 6.10

Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that each building or part of a building designed for different occupation is fitted with fuel and power meters.

Limitation:

This standard does not apply to:

domestic buildings

district or block heating systems where each part of the building designed for different occupation is fitted with heat meters, or

heating fired by solid fuel or biomass.

6.10.0 Introduction

To enable building operators to measure and manage energy use within a building effectively, a building should be fitted with meters to allow the use of fuel and power to be monitored.

Areas of further good practice in this respect, which building operators can consider include:

as part of any metering strategy adopted within larger buildings, consideration can be given to the benefits the facility for automatic meter reading and data collection can offer
where solid mineral fuel or biomass is used, recording the volume of fuel used and calorific value can assist in assessing performance.

Conversions - in the case of conversions, as specified in regulation 4, the building as converted shall meet the requirement of this standard (regulation 12, schedule 6).

6.10.1 Metering

All buildings should be fitted with meters to record fuel and power use. These should be located where they can be easily accessed by the building operator. Information provided under Standard 6.8 should enable building occupiers to be familiar with the metering installation and the locations of meters.

Each area divided by separating walls and separating floors and designed for different occupation, including common areas, should be provided with fuel and power meters to measure energy use in each area.

Where multiple buildings or fire separated units are served on a site by a communal heating appliance, metering shall be installed both at the communal heating appliance and heat meters at the individual buildings served.

Where a combined heat and power installation is present, metering should be provided which measures the hours run, electricity generated, and the fuel supplied to the unit.

CIBSE Technical Memorandum 39 (TM39) ‘Building energy metering’ provides guidance on preparing a metering strategy.

6.10.2 Sub-metering

In all but the simplest buildings, information on the use of fuel and power, broken down into various end uses, will assist building operators in assessing and improving energy efficiency. To enable this, sub-metering should be provided to allow monitoring of fuel and power consumption to the various end-uses (heating, lighting etc).

The extent to which sub-metering will be beneficial will vary with the size and complexity of fixed building services within the building. Installation of sub-metering should be based upon guidance on the development and implementation of a metering strategy within CIBSE TM 39 - ‘building energy metering’ (2009) (http://www.cibse.org/). A metering strategy should consider the cost, practicality, and value of the information gained by detailed metering against potential future energy savings.

Low carbon equipment - as part of any strategy, meters should be provided to enable the performance of LCE systems to be separately monitored.

6.10.3 Metering and sub-metering in existing buildings

Where the creation of two or more units in different occupation occurs, each unit should have metering installed. The guidance in the clauses 6.10.1 and 6.10.2 should be applied.

If a new fuel type or new boiler (where none existed previously) is installed, metering should be installed, where not already present.