If you have more than 250 UK employees or an annual turnover exceeding €50 million and a balance sheet total exceeding €43 million it is time to start planning how you will comply with phase 2 of the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme (ESOS) regulations. Fines for non-compliance can be up to £90,000.
ESOS was first introduced in 2014 and is part of a European objective to reduce energy consumption by 20% by 2020. It is a mandatory energy assessment scheme for all large UK organisations (as defined by the criteria above).
The idea is that by forcing Directors of large businesses to review energy use and energy saving opportunities, energy savings will result and help the UK to meet its climate change targets. This was borne out by work we did during phase one of ESOS; we identified savings averaging 16.3% per client.
The Phase 1 ESOS compliance deadline was in December 2015 and many companies (300 was the last reported figure in summer) are yet to comply. If you find yourself in this situation, you will probably have received a penalty notice from the Environment Agency (EA), the scheme administrators. Don’t panic… it’s not too late, just contact us to get compliant now!
As for Phase 2, businesses who meet the qualification criteria on 31 December 2018 will need to undertake an ESOS assessment and notify compliance to the EA by 05 December 2019.
An ESOS assessment requires the following:
- Appoint a lead assessor
- Calculate your total energy consumption
- Identify and audit your areas of significant energy consumption
- Notify the Environment Agency
- Keep records
Time is of the essence as starting the process now will make complying with the deadline much easier. Also, good quality Lead Assessors are in short supply, so we encourage you to act now to ensure you aren’t caught out and make sure you are compliant by the deadline.
Here at NFU Energy Service, we have two ESOS Lead Assessors, Oli Coe and Jon Swain, as well as a supporting team of engineers and data analysts. Give Oli or Jon a call on 024 7669 8899 to discuss how we can help you further.