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Past and present of the certification process in Spain
Those of us who have been in it for a long time energy certification process in Spain We remember a significant date, June 1, 2013. In April of that year, a pending Royal Decree 235/2013 of April 5 was approved in the BOE that promulgated the obligation to carry out the energy certificate as an unavoidable issue. What times were those!… Where the illusion of new stable job prospects was the talk of all professionals in the architecture sector.
From Brussels, years ago, they already warned with their energy efficiency directives, especially Directive 2010/31 / EU, that buildings were and are the largest consumers of energy in the world, and that they represent more than a third of energy final consumed on the planet (The places where we live and work are responsible for up to 40% of final energy consumption and 36% of carbon dioxide emissions across Europe). In equal measure, they are one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions.Reduce energy consumption and emissions in the real estate sector must be a public cause with achievable objectives, according to Brussels, and one of the most effective tools in the short term is the use of the certification process.
Graphic of the article modern houses where you will find an exceptional manual.
This is where the energy efficiency certificate for buildings came into force in 2013 with the aim of identifying "diseases" at the energy efficiency level of homes, buildings, premises … etc. Through a thorough diagnosis, also adding a set of suggestions that allow building owners to adjust and correct the identified problems. With certification obligations for:
The energy certificate before the citizen
When a project or purpose aimed at citizens does not have a good coherent basis and mainly, it is not well explained … What is the certificate for? What are advantages and benefits? What does it bring to the consumer? We get a reaction like those expressed in the recent article in the newspaper El País with the title "Reluctant to energy certification" and the tagline that precedes «Most homeowners advertise their homes without the required labeling. '
We must remember which buildings are required to carry out the certification process, from the responsibility of the developer, to the owners:
After three years of certification, a collection of legislations by communities that in some cases are very correct and in others correspond to an absolute ambiguity protected by a state regulation that continues, to this day, falling into legislative confusion. It reminds us that the feeling that the citizen has of the document is of one more tax…. We have had three years to repair and clarify concepts, and the result is the same as on June 1, 2013. We can see the article from September 2013 (El País) with the headline "The chaos of the energy certificate"finding between the lines "What if it is a pocket picker, another government invention to collect" users comment.
Covering a little more, that is, entering the IEE Building Evaluation Reports, it seems that we are going the same way as energy certification, both in the absurd price war and in the little information before the citizen, and if we go into the energy audit sector, we are falling into the same guidelines with the news of the newspaper El Economista Aqui with the overwhelming title of "The price of the energy audit falls by 80% and fraud is expected."
Current situation of the certification process in Spain
Although the Ministry of Industry offers us a report from June 2015 with the data and status of the certification process by Autonomous Communities (Here) we must expand the vision and comparison with other countries, so we can determine if we are in the right direction or no. Here the portal comes into play Zebra2020 and we remember the article trends in energy certification.
Zebra2020 project
The Zebra2020, focuses on monitoring the market and advances on thebuildings with almost zero energy consumption (Net Zero Energy Bulding or nZEB) to derive recommendations and strategies for the construction sector and policy makers, with the intention of accelerating the absorption of the real estate market of buildings nZEBs where the behavior of the certification process of the buildings is also studied. different EU countries.
Through an interactive tool with maps we can compare different countries or together. If we go to energy certification for new buildings, residential case, we will have the following graph:
I think there is no need to guess which country is in redder. OJo!… Are data for new buildings with a high index in labels with an «E» rating for Spain. In other words, with better and less severe climatic conditions than most EU countries, we continue to build less efficient buildings.
Timeline information
We remember, and we will not tire of repeating, that from HERE we have a Time Line, a constant monitoring of the main changes in the certification process since 2015.
Certification: calculations and justification before the Technical Code
This is one of the most controversial aspects, mainly because there has been no information that clarifies concepts and information, and this is essential to know what we do in the certification process, it does not only consist of handling the Ce3X, Cerma or CE3.
There is a new document that presents a information that practically every certifying technician should have, to our knowledge. It is the User Manual of the ISOVER CTE Analysis Plugin for Ce3X (HERE) that covers two points; one is the use of the ISOVER plugin, which at the end of the article we explain why we should use it, and various schemes - final part of the document - that very well clarify the calculations, processes and justification of the Technical Code. An example is:
New building scheme or extension of the existing building
Existing building scheme
How to deliver a quality report
This aspect should already be overcome, but we continue to find reports with literally the right sheets, not one more, and in reality that represents a decline in the professionalism of the technician. They offer the appropriate information and that it is useful to the client is one of the aspects that we must take care of, remember that our client is our best publicity. Apart from the presentation of the report, I am referring to the visual aspect, we have to consider other aspects:
Observations in the report
Coherent observations are lacking in the reports, and look at that at the time we placed a lot of emphasis on this issue, both to protect our backs from possible legal actions and to justify different points of the report. The article that we make is What observations to add in the energy certificate. It is clear that everyone must adapt them to their report and their way of writing, but we provide some basic guidelines.
Home Efficiency Basic Guide
An energy efficiency guide with basic concepts. It is not just "releasing the report", it is informing our client of the basics of energy saving. From article 100 Energy efficiency guides you can get a lot of information and write your own report, just like the one we use:
Improvement measures in the energy certificate
We currently have different tools to complement the improvement measures required in the energy certificate. In our opinion the best would be the ISOVER Plugin for Ce3X, the so-called iConecta. Two main reasons, first because it is protected by a serious company and that cares about the constant updates of the complement in the face of the changes that occur in the Ce3X and secondly because it is thought with a view to the future. That is to say:
Three main objectives of the Plugin
- Provides improvement measures in the reports.
- The plugin anticipates what may happen in the future with CE3X. You already carry out the verification for new construction.
- The complement verifies at the time of presenting the energy certificate that the proposed improvement measures comply with the CTE … it is not mandatory to do so at this time, but …What sense would it make to present improvement measures that do not comply with the law?
To further clarify concepts and the plugin target for Ce3X It is highly recommended to see the following explanatory video that was made in the Habitat Forum
We can also read more about how to use it from an article on this portal here.
Another of the qualities is that it has a manual with technical quality and well explained, which we have commented previously and we repeat again… HERE. So providing actual improvement measures in reports is no longer a hassle for technicians.
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