The Department of Energy has published new draft regulations which seek to make it mandatory for certain buildings to submit and publicly display their energy performance.

The new regulations apply to both government and private buildings, and will be recorded in a new ‘building energy performance register’ to be created by the South African National Energy Development Institute.

The draft regulations defines ‘energy performance’ as net energy consumed in kilowatt hours per square metre per year (kWh/m2/a) to meet the different needs associated with the use of a building, which may include:

• Heating;
• Hot water heating;
• Cooling;
• Ventilation and lighting (but excluding measured or assessed energy consumed by garages);
• Car parks and storage areas;
• Outdoor services.

Upon submitting their usage, each building will receive an energy performance certificate which will be valid for no longer than five years, and must be posted at the entrance of the building.

BusinessTech broke down the types of buildings which will be required to submit this information below.

Government

The following buildings will be required to display their energy performance certificates at their entrances:

• Buildings used for entertainment, public assembly, theaters, indoor sport arenas, places of instruction, and offices;
• The building needs to have been in operation (performing one of the above uses) for at least 2 years, and has not been subject to a major renovation within the past 2 years of operation;
• Has a total net floor area of over 2,000 square metres.

Private

The following buildings will be required to display their energy performance certificates at their entrances:

• Buildings used for entertainment, public assembly, theaters, indoor sport arenas, places of instruction, and offices;
• The building needs to have been in operation (performing one of the above uses) for at least 2 years, and has not been subject to a major renovation within the past 2 years of operation;
• Has a total net floor area of over 1,000 square metres.

Regulations for the Mandatory Display and Submission of Energy Performance Certificates by BusinessTech on Scribd