by Jbs010910 g3 — January 11, 2010—The BRE Trust has carried out a project analyzing the Display Energy Certificate (DEC) statistics of more than 28,000 public sector buildings.
Results show that while DECs are valuable they do not provide evidence of real energy efficiency improvements and carbon emission reductions in public sector buildings. The DEC is a record of the building’s metered energy usage and associated carbon emissions over a 12-month period, compared against established benchmarks to give a rating from A (best) to G (poorest).
It has been suggested that DECs should be made mandatory for all non-domestic buildings, to provide evidence of actual emissions and potential leverage for improvements. The BRE study found that the benchmarks were appropriate and that DECs were generally giving consistent results. However, up to nine percent of DEC data was found to be unreliable as a guide to the energy and carbon performance of buildings because default ratings are being used or the values are questionable in some way.
A full report on the finding of the research will be published by IHS/BRE press in 2010.
