Nothing drives a market like legislation?
February 1st 2008

There is less than twelve months to go before the deadline for the completion of the first inspections of some air conditioning systems (those with a cooling power of over 250kW) under Article 9 of The European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) but as with most new legislation, these new requirements could take some time for the market to digest explains Efficient Air

e have 36, 000 buildings which have large air conditioning systems of over 250kW output and probably more than half a million buildings with small systems.We estimate for the January 2009 target to be achieved 500 full time inspectors and assessors will need to work throughout England and Wales." explains Darren Bryant, MD of HVAC energy savings, specialist, Efficient Air.

"The problem is that there aren't enough skills or qualified engineers to undertake these inspections.The legislation is there for best intentions – to save money and combat climate change – but the physical problem is we lack many of the trained competent people out there to implement it, and will be fortunate to have a very small percentage completed by the deadlines." Efficient Air says it has already taken numerous enquiries from organisations that are thinking ahead."We have carried out many surveys within the same parameters as those covered by Article 9," reports operations manager,Darren Jones.

Jones, who has become one of the first registered low carbon consultants under the CIBSE scheme, will also be responsible for managing a training programme for would be Article 9 Inspectors."The real challenge will be to find and train a body of inspectors to meet Article 9 requirements, and we will be working with the DCLG and accredited organisations to facilitate this process." He believes that a key driver for the owners to have the inspections done is energy certification itself.

"Article 9 requires large public buildings to display the certificate which shows the building's energy performance rating. The building may be designed energy efficiently to achieve A rating but operationally it may be run badly so it could be a C or D rating.

"It's this attitude of someone wanting to improve the energy rating of the building and having one of these inspections to tell them how to do it which is the main driver," adds Jones.

Building owners who fail to meet deadlines are imposed with a fine ranging from 500 to 5000 euros, "which is a very small amount compared to the cost,"adds company md Bryant. He thinks that public authorities like hospitals, local governments and central government will want to comply with legislation whereas the profit making companies may be reluctant to do it."Except the big ones, top banks and so on , because they want to be seen to adhere to their corporate social responsibility policies, reducing their carbon footprint and so on, but the small and medium size companies may not bother." Efficient Air favours a more invasive approach to energy saving as opposed to relying solely on the more passive Building Energy Management System.

The company believes that by visually inspecting HVAC plant both internally and externally it can pick up and identify a whole host of issues relating to the efficiency of the plant. This approach, in addition to the plant inspections, involves measuring the power consumed by fan motors as well as taking temperature, pressure and humidity readings between each AHU component during the audit and comparing these with what the BEMS is reporting. Efficient Air also look at BEMS set points, dead bands, time schedules and controls strategies to identify quick win opportunities.

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