As I am sure most of you are aware the ESOS scheme is about to roll out. As with all government schemes there is an amount of red tape and mandatory compliance levels to meet and a number of required actions you need to take. So we thought it would be useful to let you have a brief overview of the things you need to think about without the government language that sometimes accompanies these initiatives. Obviously the best advice is to contact us to see how we can help with compliance but firstly, let’s make sure we are all on the same page.
The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme is likely to apply to the following companies
- Businesses with more than 250 employees
- Businesses with a turnover of more than € 50 million.
- Business who are part of a larger group that meets either of the first two criteria.
If you meet any of these criteria then you are very likely to need to comply with the ESOS requirements and that means implementing a strategy.
The scheme will roll out in a series of phases and the first of these is December 31st 2014. So it’s really quite close. As I said at the beginning there are quite a number of things to be considered and we can’t cover them all in this article but the full scheme details are available from the link below.
Basically in the short term you need to consider the following to comply.
- Do you have an ISO 50001 energy management system in operation? If not, or if you just thought ‘what is ISO 50001?’ then you probably need to ensure you have an implementation plan around the following:
- Determine your areas of significant energy consumption. The operative word here is ‘significant’ and how that applies to you. Essentially it means 90% of your total energy consumption.
- Consider routes to compliance with your areas of significant consumption.
- Of course to do the above you will need to measure your total energy consumption this will include
- Industrial process
- Buildings
- Transport
- Areas of significant energy consumption must be audited in an appropriate and clear manner. How this is achieved is vital to the process of complying with ESOS.
- It is likely you will need a lead assessor to oversee the process and ensure compliance.
To be frank that is just the briefest over view and the regulations covering who applies alone cover many pages.
I am not going to sugar coat this for you because you need to consider it in the reality of your business but clearly there is going to be a cost in terms of man hours as well as the financial implications of implementing your process.
We can help. Here at UNIQ Solutions we will be happy to discuss the best way to make this process as painless and as cost effective as possible. For most businesses in the compliance group we could probably take this opportunity to make ESOS a good return on your investment via auditing and remote management.
