CO2-footprint BPD Ontwikkeling
BPD Ontwikkeling B.V.
For many businesses, saving energy is a big chance to reduce business expenses significantly. There are various ways to save energy. On top of that there are many intriguing subsidisations and schemes that make investing in saving energy even more attractive.
Are you planning on meeting your energy needs in a sustainable way, for instance with solar panels? Than saving energy is also very interesting, since every kWh you save does not need to be produced and therefor you do not have to invest in it.
In this article we will dive into the opportunities of saving energy en the what is required by law to save energy.
Go to:
• Energy saving opportunities for businesses
• Is my business required to save energy?
• Is my company an establishment?
• Information requirement
• Additional chances
you can initiate an investigation to discover how saving energy helps your business and which energy saving opportunities your business has. This investigation will research the following points about your location:
• Which saving opportunities there are
• What the investment is
• What the annual savings are
• What the rendition time is
This way you will know exactly where saving energy is possible and what investments are interesting for your business. With this it would be wise to check if your business is required by law to save energy. Since you are also required to initiate an investigation based on the requirements your business has.
The investigation also looks into the use of excess heat from processes and facilities like air-pressurisers and cooling machines. There is the possibility that you need heat in a different part of your facility, excess heat can be used for this. It can also be shared with neighbouring company. By installing supply and demand interesting and financially attractive solutions can be created for companies to save energy.
Aside from this, the energy savings investigation will give insight into the sustainable production of your energy needs. For instance with a solarPV-installation.
Saving energy is a great opportunity for companies. However, for some companies saving energy is required by law. As of right know, this counts towards 100.000 companies across the Netherlands.
The define whether or not your company is legally required to save energy, you will need the following data about your company:
• Is my company an institution?
• How much staff does my organisation have?
• What is our annual income and balance total?
• How much gas and electricity do we use annually?
In the following image you can schematically view the energy saving requirements per situation. For a company, saving energy start with creating oversight of all relevant information.
You can describe an institute as ‘a location where business related activities take place involving people’. For a more extensive explanation you can view the environmental management law. Around 95% of all companies are defined as institutions. So, chances are your company falls under this category as well.
However, if your company has special locations, such as large ships or drilling platforms, it would be wise to further look into what falls under an ‘institution’. All companies who do not fall under the category ‘institution’ are not required to save energy.
The next step is to look at how much staff your company has. Mainly if you have more or less than 250 active staff members. This includes staff from all business locations, including hired people. If the amount of staff is or surpasses 250 members, there is a large chance you are due for an EED-audit. If there are less than 250 active staff members, you can start looking at your annual revenue and annual balance total.
In accordance with European law, it is decided that companies exceeding the following revenue and balance total are required to have an EED-audit:
• More than € 50 million in revenue
• More than € 43 million balance total
To discover if this includes your company, you need to look at your numbers from the last year. Only if you exceed both amounts you can be required to have an EED-audit.
If your company neither exceeds the revenue requirement or balance total nor 250 active staff members, you are not required to have an EED-audit. This does not mean that your company has no energy saving requirements. For this you need to look at the usage of your company.
As a first step it would be wise to define the amount of gas and electricity your company used per location this year. Because, where previous requirements were mainly about the entire organisation (apart from being an institution or not), the users categorisation is about each location individually.
If you have a good insight into your usage, you can define if your are a small, medium or large user op energy based on the following model:
Small users are free of energy saving required by law. But there are still option for small businesses to reduce energy costs. You can find many possibilities for this on the website of infomil.
All settlements and locations that are seen as middle users are required to take all energy saving measures that recuperate themselves within 5 years. To make this easier, the government has developed the so called measure-systematic. In this system measures have been defined for 19 different sectors, which could include yours.
There are many different measurement lists like this for a variety of sectors, such as offices, agricultural locations, printing houses and educational institutions.
You are not required to take all the measures on one of the lists, the saving requirements are binding, but if you find alternative measures to achieve the saving requirement, these are allowed as well.
On our page about the recognised measures you can read more about this.
All large users are have to meet the recognised measures-systematic requirements. However, there is one important difference with middle users. Large users can be required to initiate an energy savings investigation.
If a reviewer suspects, during a check-up, that not all measures that can be recuperated within 5 years will be achieved, an energy savings investigation can be demanded. This investigation will uncover your current energy situation and define what energy saving measures can be recuperated within 5 years. On top of this your behavioural and transport measures are also looked into.
Perhaps you have heard about the information requirement recently. If not, we will gladly inform you. The law concerning saving energy was updated on the first of July 2019. Before this, all middle and large users were required to inform the government about the recuperable energy saving measures taken in the past 4 years.
Since 2019 you are able to give a report to the government via the eLoket. If you do not inform the government or you did not take any measure at all you are in violation of the law, even then the measurements are required.
The report can be fully made on MijnEML.nl, which can then be submitted to the eLoket. MijnEML offers four packages. When you purchase one of the packages, you can get € 50,- off via Ekwadraat. If you want to know more, Ekwadraat can inform you.
Aside from an investigation into the devices and installations in you building there are also opportunities for the shell of your building. For instance, do you know how much heat escapes your building or office? With a blowerdoortest or thermal investigation (thermografisch onderzoek) you can discover this.
Look at the sporthall in the picture below for instance. The red spots on the ceiling indicate where the heat goes and the purple/blue spots show where the cold air comes in. You can imagine how much can be saved on heating costs if the hall is airtight and fully isolated.
As you can see the are multiple options for companies to save energy on. Often investing in energy saving measures makes you eligible for subsidy. So your saving double, on your investment and you energy costs.
On our page about subsidy and saving energy you can read all about acquiring subsidy on energy saving measurements.
As you have now read, there are many interesting opportunities for small, medium and large companies to reduce energy use, CO2 -emissions and energy costs. Aside from this there are a couple of investigations required to discover which requirements apply to your company and its locations.
Ekwadraat gladly helps you use these opportunities and meet all requirements. We achieve this by granting insight into what recuperative energy saving measures you can take. We do specific investigations, like the EED-audit, but we can also guide you in the implementation of energy monitoring within your company.
We help you through the entire process of the saving measures, where we work towards an energy efficient and fully sustainable business. Simultaneously we make sure you achieve all law requirements.
Curious what saving measures are interesting to you? We will find out for you!
"Curious if and how much energy you can save? I will find out for you!"
Since 2003 we have helped 700 companies, municipalities and developers achieve their sustainable projects. From this, the unique Ekwadraat formula came to be.
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