BEAMA has welcomed the new EU Heating & Cooling strategy ‘Towards a smart, efficient and sustainable heating and cooling sector’, hailing its “unambiguous ambition to decarbonize both buildings and heat through the realization of the links between decarbonized generation, smarter energy management and the electrification of heat.”
Speaking shortly after the launch of the strategy in Brussels, BEAMA’s Deputy CEO Kelly Butler said “this strategy hits at the heart of what we have been telling UK policy makers for many years; progress with decarbonizing heat is linked to driving building renovation rates, making bold decisions on consequential improvements, mandating the requirement for full heating controls, making homes ‘renewable ready’ as best as possible with thermal stores and low temperature heating systems, and maximizing the opportunities smart metering provides for flexible local energy management. We are particularly pleased to see specific mention in the strategy of the importance of controls, low temperature heating, consumer feedback via smart metering and the need for demand response and time of use tariffs.”
The strategy identifies the relevant tools at EU member states’ disposal, including energy labelling and energy performance certificates, and it explicitly explains that it will use the revisions to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, the Renewable Energy Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive to drive growth in low carbon renewable heating & cooling.
In advising the EU Commission on earlier drafts of the strategy, BEAMA and its EU counterpart Orgalime recommended that the EPBD should start to legislate for minimum energy label ratings for new heating systems across the EU. Butler added “if the EPBD can require all new heating systems across the EU to be A rated by 2020 – using the proposed new labelling scale – then significant mass market progress will have been made not dissimilar to what we achieved in the UK with the mandatory condensing boiler policy introduced 10 years ago.”
