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Air Conditioning TM44 Energy Report Guidelines

Directive 2002/91/EC of the Energy Performance of Buildings Article 9, requires member states to introduce measures to establish a method of checking all air conditioning systems, by formal inspection and report means, to minimise energy usage and carbon footprint.

The Energy Performance of Building Directive 2002

The directive was implemented into UK legislation in the form of the ‘Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2007’ with the following ‘highlights’:
Part 4 of the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations requires the person who has control of the operation/ maintenance of any air-conditioning systems (The Relevant Person) in a building, is to ensure the overall system is inspected by an accredited air conditioning assessor at regular intervals (at least every 5 years).
Regulation 21 requires the Relevant Person to ensure that inspections on such systems take place at regular intervals no greater than 5 years, and sets out the phased implementation for this requirement (as detailed previously).

The Energy Performance of Building Directive 2002 in Detail

Regulation 22 sets out the minimum requirements in terms of what the assessor’s written report must contain.
Regulation 23 requires the Relevant Person to keep the most recent report and the Fgas register.
Regulation 24 requires that from 4th January 2011, if there is a change of responsibility for a system, a new occupier who is not given a report upon handover must ensure an inspection is carried out within three months of occupation.
To re- iterate, the ‘Relevant Person’ will be the person within the company who is responsible for property maintenance or if there isn’t one, then it would fall on any/ all Directors.
The only exclusion to this is if the services are Landlord maintained.
In the UK, the compliance method that has been adopted to fulfil this obligation by most inspectors is CIBSE TM44.
The Directive requires that all air-conditioning systems with an effective rated output of more than 12 Kw must be inspected by an accredited Energy Assessor no more than intervals of 5 years.
The regulations require the first inspection of the air conditioning systems to be carried out as follows
For systems over 250kw, inspections should have been completed by 4th January 2009.
For system below 250kw but above 12kw, inspections should have been completed 4th January 2011.
For all systems first put into service on or after 30th December 2008, the first inspection must have taken place within five years of the date when it was first put into service.
For those that do not comply, fines will be imposed by the Government on an annual basis until compliant information is provided in the official format. Although the level of actual fine is relatively low, the real cost may be simply using and paying for more energy than necessary, trading standards have been appointed to provide enforcement of the act.

Adrian Ogden