A roaring fire on your flat screen this year may put paid to all those video clips on collapsing ice sheets.
The carbon footprint of a digital fireplace remains something of a mystery but there are definite ways of calculating how friendly your home is to the environment. Where possible, improvements can be made with an energy performance certificate to guide you.
Most buildings, with a few exceptions, should now have an energy performance certificate (EPC) to gauge energy consumption and encourage reduction in the amount of energy needed for heating, cooling and lighting.
Some buildings are exempt, such as churches and historic buildings. New buildings occupied and owned by public authorities have four years to comply with EPC legislation.
The certificate is similar to the labelling scheme for household electrical appliances, with a scale showing the energy rating of your building and its carbon emissions.
For example, heating of homes using wood, gas or oil to generate electricity carries a lower performance rating than buildings which are well insulated against the cold and damp winter nights.
The certificate rates a building’s energy efficiency by calculating its energy performance, taking into account orientation to the sun, insulation, heating and cooling, hot water supply, lighting and indoor climatic conditions.
If shading and ventilation on buildings are better taken into account then the way ratings are calculated could be more accurate.
When the first European directive on energy-efficient buildings was transposed into Maltese legislation, there was some confusion as to whether the Malta Environment and Planning Authority or the Malta Resources Authority was responsible for enforcing regulations on efficient energy use in buildings.
In 2012, a recast directive on energy performance in buildings was brought into local law. Under this Act the Building Regulation Office was named as responsible, in collaboration with the Malta Environmental and Planning Authority, to establish a monitoring system for minimum energy performance requirements in buildings.
At present, the Building Regulation Office in the Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure provides on its website a list of 80 building assessors and information on how to go about getting your building certified for energy efficiency.
Anyone who commissions the design of a new building should be obliged to obtain an EPC before submitting an application for a full development permit to the planning authority. If a building is not yet constructed it can be assessed for energy efficiency at design stage and given a rating.
European directives on cutting energy wastage in buildings aim for all new buildings to be close to zero-energy consumption in buildings within the next six years. Zero-energy refers to the total amount of energy used by a building on an annual basis being about the same as the amount of renewable energy created on the site by means of solar panels or other alternative sources. The aim is to close the energy gap as close as possible to zero.
Major renovations of buildings present an opportunity for energy performance to be upgraded to at least the minimum requirements.
New buildings should undergo a feasibility study which would look at the possibility of installing renewable energy supply systems, co-generation, heat pumps or block heating and cooling systems before construction starts.
Anyone buying or renting a property has a right to ask for the EPC, which shows how high or low the energy consumption of the building is expected to be.
When a building or building unit is offered for sale or for rent, the energy performance indicator of the EPC should be included in advertisements in commercial media.
Do banks ensure that an EPC is available when property changes hands? A Bank of Valletta spokesman said that in all sanction letters sent to anyone taking out a loan to buy property, one conditions is that an EPC must be acquired.
An environmental activist who made enquiries was directed upstream. “Very few are enforcing it, mainly due to the high costs involved. If you are lobbying for its enforcement you should seek access to the Malta Bankers Association, which is the forum for financial institutions to discuss issues of this nature,” was the advice of the executive head of Bank of Valletta’s consumer finance centre.
Anyone buying or renting a property has a right to ask for the energy performance certificate
The bank includes reference to the certificate in loan conditions to create awareness. Notaries are in a key position to ask for an EPC at the point when the sale goes through, although it doesn’t always happen that way. To be valid, the EPC has to be obtained from an assessor and registered with the Building Regulation Office, on payment of a €75 fee, before being issued to the person who commissions it. The certificate must be reviewed every 10 years for dwellings. For public buildings, a first review is done after five years, then every three years.
Entities occupying a building providing a public service to a large number of people are also obliged by law to ensure that an EPC is displayed at all times in a prominent place clearly visible to the public.
Buildings with a total floor area of 1,000 square metres that are visited by more than 500 people per day – including banks, post offices, large retail establishments and large entertainment facilities – should have the certificate on display.
All new public buildings should obtain an EPC within a year of being connected to the electricity supply. This requirement has been in place for four years, yet public buildings displaying EPCs as an awareness-raising example are hard to find.
Inspections of boilers and air-conditioners of a certain size also became a legal requirement in 2012. It is the responsibility of the owners of heating or air-conditioning systems of a certain size to check whether the requirement of regular inspections applies to their systems. Inspection reports may include recommendations for the cost-effective improvement of the energy performance of the inspected systems.
Registered heating and air-conditioning systems inspectors are listed on the EPC website of the Building Regulations Office.
While few seem aware of it, Malta is one of only three EU member countries (along with Belgium and Holland) to have set itself an intermediate target of five per cent of all new buildings to be zero-energy buildings by the year 2015. Where are they and who is monitoring? We haven’t much time left to meet our own target.
Despite having a system of certificates in place, Malta needs to perform better when it comes to financial support schemes and strengthening of building regulations for better energy efficiency. A national plan giving information on policies and financial measures for improving energy performance of buildings with clear targets, along with incentives, is needed.
Although not yet officially approved, a cap on energy consumption for Maltese buildings has been proposed on behalf of the Maltese government. As a rough guide, energy performance should not exceed 40 kilowatts per hour per square metre annually. For all other buildings, the figure is 60 kWh.
An overview of the progress made by member states on new zero-energy buildings was published last October by Ecofys, a leading consultancy in renewable energy.
Since uptake of the EPC scheme across Europe has been generally slow the European Commission is looking at a voluntary scheme which would encourage offices and hotels to sign up for better energy efficiency in the buildings they occupy.
www.epc.gov.mt