Building Energy Certification

The requirement for certification of buildings in the EU Directive on the energy performance of buildings was partly transposed in January 2007 by Royal Decree 47/2007, outlining the procedure for the energy certification of new buildings. The Royal Decree established a register of technical documents recognised for the energy certification of buildings, according to requirements outlined by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Housing. Building on the procedure in the Royal Decree, Regional Governments will develop specific procedures, as well as register certificates and undertake inspections. The computer application for the previous energy certification of buildings programme was updated acording to the Royal Decree 47/2007 and is available free of charge in the web site of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. The demands in terms of energy certification for buildings, stemmed from Directive 2002/91/EC of the European Parliament and the Council, of 16 December 2002, were further amended by Directive 2010/31/EU of the European Parliament and the Council, of 19 May 2010, relating to energy efficiency in buildings. This made it necessary to transpose anew the new amendments introduced into the Spanish legal system through the Royal Decree 235/2013, thanks to which, the Directive 2010/31/EU is partially transposed in terms of the energy certification of buildings by consolidating Royal Decree 47/2007 with the inclusion of the basic procedure to certify energy efficiency in existing buildings, and also taking into account the experience of its applications in the last five years. The Royal Decree 235/2013 sets out the obligation of having a certificate of energy efficiency available to buyers or users of buildings. The said certificate shall include objective information on the energy efficiency of the building and reference values such as energy efficiency minimum requirements; in this way, the energy efficiency of the building or of a unit of it can be compared and assessed by either owners or tenants.

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