UK Government Updates ESOS Guidelines

UK Government Updates ESOS Guidelines

Britain?s Environment Agency has produced an update to the ESOS guidelines previously published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Fortunately for businesses much of it has remained the same. Hence it is only necessary to highlight the changes here.

1. Participants in joint ventures without a clear majority must assess themselves individually against criteria for participation, and run their own ESOS programs if they comply.
2. If a party supplying energy to assets held in trust qualifies for ESOS then these assets must be included in its program.
3. Total energy consumption applies only to assets held on both the 31 December 2014 and 5 December 2015 peg points. This is relevant to the construction industry where sites may exchange hands between the two dates. The definition of ?held? includes borrowed, leased, rented and used.
4. Energy consumption while travelling by plane or ship is only relevant if either (or both) start and end-points are in the UK. Foreign travel may be voluntarily included at company discretion. The guidelines are silent regarding double counting when travelling to fellow EU states.
5. The choice of sites to sample is at the discretion of the company and lead assessor. The findings of these audits must be applied across the board, and ?robust explanations? provided in the evidence pack for selection of specific sites. This is a departure from traditional emphasis on random.

The Environment Agency has provided the following checklist of what to keep in the evidence pack

1. Contact details of participating and responsible undertakings
2. Details of directors or equivalents who reviewed the assessment
3. Written confirmation of this by these persons
4. Contact details of lead assessor and the register they appear on
5. Written confirmation by the assessor they signed the ESOS off
6. Calculation of total energy consumption
7. List of identified areas of significant consumption
8. Details of audits and methodologies used
9. Details of energy saving opportunities identified
10. Details of methods used to address these opportunities / certificates
11. Contracts covering aggregation or release of group members
12. If less than twelve months of data used why this was so
13. Justification for using this lesser time frame
14. Reasons for including unverifiable data in assessments
15. Methodology used for arriving at estimates applied
16. If applicable, why the lead assessor overlooked a consumption profile

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2015 ESOS Guidelines Chapter 2 – Deadlines and Status Changes

The ESOS process is deadline driven and meeting key dates is a non-negotiable. The penalties for not complying / providing false or misleading information are ?50,000 each. Simply not maintaining adequate records could cost you ?5,000. The carrot on the end of the stick is the financial benefits you stand to gain.

Qualifying for inclusion under the ESOS umbrella depends on the status of your company in terms of employee numbers, turnover and balance sheet on 31 December 2014. Regardless of whether you meet the 2014 threshold or not, you must reconsider your situation on 31 December 2018, 2022 and 2026.

Notes:

1. The first compliance period begins on the date the regulations became effective

2. Energy audits from 6 December 2011 onward may go towards the first compliance report

Changes in Organisation Status

If your organisation status changes after a qualification date when you met compliance thresholds, you are still bound to complete your ESOS assessment for that compliance period. This is regardless of any change in size or structure. Your qualification status then remains in force until the next qualification date when you must reconsider it.