Scottish Building Regulations review of energy standards: call for evidence

Part 3 – Consultation on the impact of the 2015 energy standards and the focus of further review

This consultation is the first stage of the review of the current energy standards.

Its purpose is to gather views, supported by robust evidence, on your involvement in the construction or alteration of buildings under the current energy standards, introduced in October 2015.

This information will assist in finalising the scope of the review and will help identify any potential barriers to constructing buildings that are both energy efficient and reduce carbon emissions.

We would particularly like to hear from those persons who have responsibility for, or contribute to, the design and construction of domestic and non-domestic buildings.

Furthermore, we would encourage feedback on the application of the energy standards to development in remote, rural and island communities.

Some examples of the type of topics we would like to hear about are:

• The challenges you experienced, and how these were overcome in both the design and the construction of buildings. We are particularly interested in the experiences of building in remote, rural and island communities.
• Where you consider the greatest potential areas exist for further practical improvement to energy performance of buildings in the next set of energy standards.
• What role does the provision of renewable technologies have in the design and construction of buildings? What informs your view?
• To meet lower emission targets in 2015, to what extent did the building fabric (insulation) specifications you use change compared to under the 2010 standards?
• What role did the building services specification (heating, lighting, ventilation, etc) play in meeting the 2015 standards? Where do you consider the focus of attention should lie in the design and specification of low energy buildings?
• Are there any aspects of the National Calculation Methodology - Standard Assessment Procedure ( SAP) & Simplified Building Energy Model ( SBEM) -that you consider are not representative, or present challenges, in calculating and reporting building energy performance?

The above list is only provided to offer examples of possible areas of response. Accordingly, please do not limit your feedback to these topics.

To ensure the feedback we receive is robust, evidence supporting your comments should be provided where practical. This can include the uploading of relevant additional documents and examples.