As the regulatory requirements for the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme (ESOS) are starting to impact on large undertakings, those organisations with 250 or more OR with a turnover of €50m (£38, 937,777) and a Balance Sheet of €43m (£33,486,489), there is a need for clear and targeted guidance.
Initially, the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published its original Guide to ESOS in June 2014 laying out guidance on the determination of a large undertaking, steps to complete a ESOS Assessment, the role of the Lead Assessor and specific considerations for determining energy audits and recommendations.
This version 1.0 guide followed by the 1.1 version in September of the same year, which dealt with minor typographical errors and a technical correction regarding the definition of “employees” to relate to a UK company regardless of their geographical location.
Now, a further guidance document has been published by the Environment Agency, which builds upon the previous DECC Guides to ESOS and supersedes it going forward.
The Environment Agency Guidance covers similar ground as the former DECC Guides and incorporates some clear guidance based on feedback from large undertakings and Lead Assessors, such as Section 3.5.5 (page 25), which describes in more details the application of the ESOS requirements to Construction Activities & Appendix B, which gives greater detail on how to fill out the notification form (page 67).
Whether this guidance is sufficient, as judging from the questions being raised in LinkedIn and other forums, there is an untapped need for more targeted advice on how to deal with specific situations, such as multi-tenanted buildings.
A copy of the Environment Agency Guidance: Complying with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (Version 1.0) can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/1AiTTZr