Domestic and non-domestic energy performance certificates: review

1. Introduction

Scottish Ministers announced in June 2015 that they would take long-term action to reduce energy demand and decarbonise the heat supply in the nation’s residential, services and industrial sectors, designating energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority^[1]. With the publication of Energy Efficient Scotland: A Route Map in May 2018^[2], the Scottish Government has set out an ambitious programme to reduce energy demand, to contribute to its climate change objectives whilst continuing to assist tackling fuel poverty and ensuring Scotland is “a good place to do business”^[3]. Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) will be an intrinsic component within this programme. “We have chosen to use EPCs to set the standard as our consultation in 2017 showed that EPCs are widely known and provide a clear way to model and understand the energy performance of a building.”^[4]

Energy Efficient Scotland (EES) is intended to be a coordinated programme to improve the energy efficiency of homes and buildings in the commercial, public and industrial sectors and to decarbonise their heat supply. EPCs and their underlying assessment methodologies will underpin the Scottish Government’s actions to inform and drive improvements to properties, both domestic and non-domestic. What started out as an asset rating (that is, concerned about the construction of a building, the levels of insulation, the installed heating and hot water systems and their control, and lighting, irrespective of the occupants or their behaviour) has seen its purpose extended so that it has been used amongst other things to set standards for social housing landlords in Scotland^[5], used to assess the carbon savings of the utility ECO and ECO2 programmes^[6], and used in the assessment of grants under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)^[7]. EES will extend the purpose to which EPCs are put to into the realm of private rented sector compliance and then into the private owner occupier sector^[8] by setting minimum energy efficiency standards to be achieved.

As a result of all of this planning for the future, the Scottish Government considered it an appropriate time to review the issues raised around the EPC system in current practice to ensure that going forward, the assessment process more accurately accounted for the Scottish built environment, and that information provided on the EPC would usefully contribute to the strategic aim of making Scotland’s buildings more energy efficient.

In December 2017, the Scottish Government commissioned a review of EPCs, seeking a robust assessment of issues raised around EPCs in various consultations to ensure that these issues are investigated, responded to and, where appropriate, addressed through further review. The intention of this examination of the EPC system is to answer the following research questions:

• Drawing on three recent consultation responses shaping the Scottish energy efficiency strategy, what concerns were raised in terms of using EPC-based building assessments to underpin the Scottish Government’s actions to improve the energy performance of buildings?
• Which of these concerns merit a material change to the EPC-based building assessment methodologies?
• What changes can be made to EPC-based building assessment methodologies to address these concerns?
• What is the impact of the proposed changes on the information reported on domestic and non-domestic EPC certificates?
• What are the potential cost and time implications for implementing the proposed changes?
• What changes can be implemented within the scope and competencies currently defined for the role of EPC assessor?

A consortium of Scott Restrick of Energy Action Scotland (EAS), Dr. Patrick Waterfield, and led by Dr. Bill Sheldrick of Alembic Research was commissioned to carry out this work. The work programme agreed with the Scottish Government to complete this review involved various tasks:

• a literature review of the responses to three Scottish Government consultations that were carried out in 2017;
• a thematic analysis of those responses;
• using this thematic analysis to design and run four topic-based workshops;
• additional modelling and sensitivity analysis;
• the production of specific topic notes; and,
• the identification of possible actions, their impact, and cost and time implications that the Scottish Government could undertake.

This report presents the findings from the various tasks completed as part of this project. Any views expressed within the report belong to the process and the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the Scottish Government.