With just over a month to go before Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) begin to be phased in to the non-domestic sector, a clarification and simplification of some of the main ‘grey’ areas of the regulations is welcome. The Government has attempted to do just that with the publication of new guidance in late January.

One of the key points is that an EPC is not required by the various start dates of the regulations (see Box 1). EPCs are only required when a building is constructed, let or sold. This is in distinction to Display Energy Certificates (DECs) which have to be displayed by “public authorities and institutions providing public services who occupy space in a building with a total useful floor area greater than 1000m2”. DECs have to be displayed from October this year and must be renewed annually, while EPCs are valid for up to 10 years.

Although EPCs are required for sales and lets, certain transactions are not viewed as such. As the purpose of the EPC is to enable potential buyers, tenants or building occupiers to consider energy performance in their investment decision, certain property transfer activities will not need a new EPC, including:
n  Lease renewals or extensions
n  Compulsory purchase orders
n  Lease surrenders
A lease assignment is considered a sale or let and the assignor would normally be required to provide an EPC.

Multi-tenanted buildings
The guide notes with a certain degree of understatement: “the use and occupancy patterns of a non-dwelling can be complex”. And one aspect of the regulations where there is great potential for confusion is in their application to buildings with a number of different owners or tenants.

Office space can be let floor by floor, a number of floors or even part of a floor. Any EPC made available should reflect the accommodation offered for let, says the guide, noting that “if the space offered is not conditioned, then an EPC will not be required” (the phrase ‘not conditioned’ in this context means where this part of the building does not have any heating, mechanical ventilation or air conditioning – i.e. energy is not used to ‘condition’ the indoor climate).

If part of a floor is offered for let and an EPC is prepared for that space, it will be based on the services applicable to that space (these may be common to the whole building where there is a common heating system, or they may comprise the services serving the part in which the space to be let is situated) and will need to take account of the energy use of any common spaces. If part of the building is used as a dwelling or dwellings, each dwelling needs its own EPC when let or sold.

If there is a single common heating system, the building landlord can either provide a common EPC for the whole building or one for each part that is used separately (except for dwellings as noted above). Separate EPCs will be based on energy use per square metre of the whole building. An EPC for an individual unit can therefore be based on an assessment of a similar representative unit in the same block.

Even buildings with independent heating systems (for each floor for example) can also be let or sold in their entirety with a single EPC, but separate EPCs are necessary if parts are sold/let individually. These may also “be based on an assessment of a similar representative unit or apartment in the same block”. So provided the systems are similar there is no need for a separate assessment of each one.

Retail centres and industrial units
The regulations aim to make the introduction of a fairly complex process as simple as possible (even though later revisions to the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive, upon which the regulations are based, may require a more detailed approach). So the same prescriptions hold for retail centres accessing a common, conditioned space, both those with a common heating system and those with individual heating. The same also applies to blocks of industrial units with a common heating system – but industrial units with individual heating systems will require individual EPCs.

Improving the energy efficiency of our buildings: a guide to energy performance certificates for the construction, sale and letting of non-domestic buildings –

www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/guidancenondwellings