Energetic inspections

A new profession will be born in January 2009 – ‘energy auditor’, that is, an official who issues certificates of energy performance for a building or premises

The obligation to evaluate a building’s energy consumption came with Poland’s accession to the EU. A 2002 directive passed by the European Parliament requires that all newly constructed buildings and those put up for sale will need valid energy certificates. But the roots of the energy audit idea go much deeper. According to Łukasz Mazurczak, property manager at Cushman & Wakefield: “The American Energy Star programme set up by the American Environment Protection Agency and the Department of Energy lies at the foundations of building certification. A certificate of efficient energy consumption was introduced in 1992, in which the target was not only buildings but extended to energy consuming products.”

In line with the amendment to the Act of 19th September 2007, in Poland building certification will become obligatory on 1st January 2009.

Who will do the evaluating?

The Ordinance of the Minister of Infrastructure which came into force in January 2008 defines the conditions that an individual must satisfy before embarking upon a career as an energy auditor. These stipulate that applicants for licences will have to undergo training for at least 50 hours, including a practical assessment taking at least 8 hours. Only people holding MSc degrees may apply to enter such courses, the cost of which, consistent with the ordinance, may be no greater than 70 pct of the gross average monthly salary according to the Central Statistical Office (GUS), which in 2007 amounted to PLN 2,691.

Łukasz Mazurczak adds that: “An energy audit differs from building certification. The first consists of checking the entire premises and energy sources, in order to provide reasons why it has achieved a specific energy consumption category. The second concerns calculating the value of the energy category which the building possesses, in other words – the amount of energy it needs to satisfy the requirements for its exploitation, calculated according to its dimensions and over a given time period.”   

After completing the training period, auditor candidates have to draw up an energy performance certificate by themselves. They will have to assess a building’s energy classification after measuring the extent to which it is energy efficient.

Łukasz Radzikowski of the Reed personnel consultancy believes that: “In the case of new residential projects, developers will probably have to audit newly constructed buildings. The question which arises is, will they send their staff on audit training to deal directly with their projects, or will they employ subcontractors? Such an audit of a delivered building will surely be less expensive than individual evaluations in every completed apartment.”

To be or not to be an auditor?

Łukasz Radzikowski claims that those people entitled to issue energy certificates will most often run their own businesses and operate on the freelance principle, adding that the work system practiced by auditors will probably be similar to that of work safety and hygiene specialists.

It will cost around PLN 1,000 to issue an energy efficiency licence – which might not seem like such a large sum, but which could translate into a huge amount of money when taking into consideration the number of flats in one average-sized building for which individual audits will have to be made. Yet another attraction for this profession is that the number of orders is theoretically infinite, since each certificate issued to all new and sold buildings becomes invalid after 10 years have elapsed.

The value of a building

An energy efficiency audit may increase the value of a building substantially when selling or buying and also renting.  This can be crucial on the office market. Łukasz Mazurczak of Cushman & Wakefield asserts that: “Large corporations currently working in Poland regularly have programmes which monitor media consumption. Energy consumption in common parts of a building as well as general-purpose systems is becoming of increasing important to tenants. The less efficient a building is in energy consumption, the greater the energy required to meet tenants’ requirements. This is of considerable importance at a time of escalating electricity prices.” Until now, tenants have tended to disregard the regulations, but this is something that could well change once energy performance certificates start to influence office rents. The extent to which certificates will affect prices is still unknown, but it is inevitable that they will.

    The Bulgarian state Energy Efficiency Agency started the certifying firms to undertake energy efficiency audits before the Act became valid in 2007. At present, 110 companies authorized to carry out audits figure on the list of agencies which also supervise their work. The maximum number of licences an agency can issue is 3,000.

People applying for an energy performance auditor’s licence must satisfy several conditions. First and foremost, they must have graduated in technical education - the agency defines precisely what kind. Automatic qualification is allowed to architects, construction engineers and people installing air-conditioning and ventilation systems. In addition, for a company employing auditors to receive a licence, the personnel it employs should have 3 years experience in their posts (for people with a higher education) and five years in the case of people with secondary school education.

Auditor without a qualification course

A two-week preparatory course which was mandatory until recently, today costs BGN 1,600 (around PLN 3,200) per person. Following a wave of protests the course is no longer obligatory, with a candidate only having to present a crediting work. In addition, a company who wishes to obtain a licence must have its own equipment required to perform an audit e.g. a digital gas analyser and a thermo-anemometer - and they are not allowed to rent it out. In the opinion of Aleksander Penchev of the ESD energy performance auditing firm: “This may be regarded as a kind of con by the state, since some devices are used only very rarely but must be kept as one’s own property. Apart from this, some rather unusable software has to be applied. Normally, companies use their own software for internal purposes.”

Clogged niche

Aleksander Penchev states: “Being an energy performance auditor is by no means a cushy number. Before the Act was passed many thought it would be a niche worth entering. In reality the relatively large group of players caused some firms to start competing sharply with prices for their services, which also has a bearing on the quality of the job done.”

In addition, often companies holding certificates lack the appropriate experience and mainly operate as agents, passing on their commissions to other more experienced players. A radical upsurge in the number of auditor companies is rather improbable in the future. Reliable and also more expensive firms will certainly maintain their place on the market, especially those which do not agree to cutting prices and demand an average of BGN 2,000 (PLN 4,000) for their work irrespective of the size of the premises or building. But should a foreign competitor want to join in the fight for orders, there would be no barriers to this. Denitza Todorova, lawyer of the Energy Efficiency Agency assures us that: “EU citizens and EU-based companies also have the right to apply for a licence entitling them to render services in Bulgaria.”

Romanian passport

As of 2010, homes in Romania may be sold exclusively with a so-called ‘energy performance passport’, which will be obligatory irrespective of the year of construction. Such a document will also have to be presented when renting a property. The implementation of the new Act started last year, since when the technical documentation of newly erected buildings must also include such a certificate, which – as in Poland’s case – is valid for ten years. There are more than 170 authorized energy performance auditors in Romania at present, while the price for auditing 1 sqm is between EUR 4 and 7. n

Zuzanna Wiak, Mladen Petrov