Energy-efficiency of commercial facilities: where do things stand?
On May 9, 2017, the French “Tertiary Decree” was posted in an official legal bulletin. Its publication made energy efficiency upgrades obligatory for all buildings of more than 2,000 m².
The decree has been definitively cancelled by the French State Council but a new version, relying on Article 55 of the French ELAN Law (for “the evolution of housing, territory planning and digital), will be published between now and the end of 2019.
Key Take-Aways:
With this new version, the obligation is no longer to perform energy-efficiency upgrades, but rather to execute actions to reduce the final consumption of energy consumed. The future decree therefore covers all improvements to equipment as well as to their processes of operating and maintaining such equipment. The idea is to stop targeting primary energy (which penalizes electrical energy and distorts consumption results) but rather, to impact final energy consumption, i.e. the real amount of energy consumed.
What are the requirements?
To reduce final energy consumption by 40% in 2030, and by 60% in 2050 – based on the year 2010.
As of 2020, building owners concerned by the new decree may find themselves obligated to communicate their energy data via a digital platform. This would imply conducting an energy consumption audit.
Energy Assessment
Unavoidable energy is the energy produced during a given process and evacuated into the atmosphere as heat. Such is the case, for example, with IT servers. With the future decree, if this energy is recuperated and used on-site, it could be deducted from the building’s total energy consumption. The same is true for the energy consumption of facilities providing electric / hybrid car recharging services.
And the impact for Building Solutions?
The future decree strengthens the coordination between exploitation and engineering & works; that’s because the execution of actions to reduce energy spend starts with a detailed audit of existing consumption, follows up with a description of possible solutions and ends with upgrades to identified equipment.
Let’s hope that this new decree contributes to creating a new dynamic in the renovation sector!
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