The initial guidance was that all buildings of public authorities of more than 1000m2 were required to have a Display Energy Certificate.  However, an institution providing a public service was only ‘captured’ if it met the space criterion and also was visited by large numbers of the public. That was still officially the situation – at least according to the CLG (Department of Communities and Local Government) website – on 15 April.
A new model, proposed at a conference on 17 April, would be that public authorities would only be included if the building concerned was more than 1000m2 and it was used by large numbers of the public.

Clearly, this dramatically reduces the number of buildings that have to produce Display Energy Certificates . Yet in a separate position paper, the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EuroACE) notes that, as regards DECs (or display Energy Performance Certificates as they are also known): “The present text of the EPBD is extremely confusing regarding the mandatory requirement to display EPCs prominently and permanently in larger non-residential buildings. Whereas Article 7.3 is capable of being interpreted as only being relevant to public buildings, Recital 16 makes plain that such display requirements should be extended to cover all larger buildings visited by the public. In consequence, this part of the directive is currently interpreted differently in Member States” – notably the UK it appears.

EuroACE suggests that: “To avoid this situation, it should be made mandatory to display EPCs in all larger buildings to which the public has access, as well as in all public buildings, regardless of size.”