What’s happening in Scotland?

The current EPC regime is similar to England in that the building owner is required to provide a certificate on the construction, sale or rental of a building to a new tenant. They are valid for 10 years from the date of issue and must be obtained from an approved domestic energy assessor.

The current EPC metric is under review, with a proposal to introduce new metrics under consideration.

Proposed reform

The heat in buildings strategy sets out a strategy to transform Scotland’s buildings and the way they are heated and is considered to be one of the most important routes to achieve net zero green house gasses by 2045.

Similar to the proposals in England this strategy is not yet government policy but sets out a direction of travel, which if followed will result in some major changes.

What is the direction of travel?

An initial target has been set of reducing emissions by 68% against 2020 outputs by implementing the following policies;

·         Maximising the number of social rented homes on an EPC B by 2032

·         No social housing to be re-let if less than an EPC D

·         Private rented homes to be an EPC C or above by 2025

·         All owner occupied homes to achieve band a minimum band C by 2035.

This similarities between England and Scotland are striking, with the main difference the proposal to introduce targets for owner occupied properties.

The scale of the challenge

An estimated 1 million homes and 50,000 non-domestic buildings will need to be converted to using low or zero methods of heating to achieve this energy efficiency.  

This is going to be challenging in Scotland, which for example has a large number of properties currently relying on heating oil or gas tanks. This is one reason why the Scottish Government is focusing early efforts on new build properties, which will require zero emission heating systems from 2024.

In the longer term, the proposal is for all buildings to have zero emission heating systems by 2045, with homeowners being unable to complete the sale of the property without this.

£1.8 billion funding

The current proposals would be supported by a significant funding package to support their implementation, alongside Local Heat & Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES) to enable an area based approach to delivering the national strategy.

However at this stage, there is some way to go before these proposals become reality.