by Roel Nekretnine Energy certification is a set of actions and procedures that are carried out for the purpose of issuing an energy certificate and includes an energy audit of the building, necessary calculations for reference climate data to show the specific annual required heat energy for heating, specific annual required heat energy for cooling, specific annual delivered energy, specific annual primary energy, specific annual CO2 emissions, determination of the building’s energy class and creation of an energy certificate.
What is an energy certificate?
The energy certificate of a building or a particular part thereof shall be issued for buildings or their particular parts in which it is necessary to use energy to maintain the indoor design temperature in accordance with their purpose, except for:
List of persons authorised for energy certification
The energy certificate has a validity of ten years from the date of its issue. The energy certificate of a building or a particular part thereof shall be issued for buildings or their particular parts in which it is necessary to use energy to maintain the indoor design temperature in accordance with their purpose, except for:
- zbuildings used for religious purposes
- temporary buildings with a planned time of use of two years or less, industrial buildings, workshops and non-residential agricultural buildings with low energy demand
- residential buildings used less than four months in a year
- fully detached buildings having a useful floor area of less than 50 m2.
The investor or the owner of a building subject to energy certification shall, prior to the issuing of a use permit, obtain the energy certificate.
The owner of a building or a particular part thereof for which the energy certificate is issued shall:
- obtain the energy certificate prior to selling, renting out or leasing the building or a particular part thereof
- hand over the energy certificate or a copy thereof to the buyer, tenant or lessee
- show the energy certificate to a prospective buyer, tenant or lessee
- list the energy class of the building or a particular part thereof in media advertisements when offering it for sale, rent or leasing.
What is the energy class of a building?
The energy class is reported for reference climate data and is an indicator of:
- specific annual heat energy requirements for heating for reference climate data and algorithm prescribed space use regime and operating regime of technical systems,
- specific annual primary energy for reference climate data and algorithm prescribed space use regime and operating regime of technical systems, which in residential buildings includes energy for heating, domestic hot water preparation and ventilation/air conditioning and in the case of non-residential buildings it includes energy for lighting and energy thermotechnical systems for a particular type of non-residential building (office buildings, education buildings, hospitals, hotels and restaurants, sports halls, shop buildings, other non-residential buildings).
- Residential and non-residential buildings are classified into eight energy classes according to the energy scale from A+ to G, with A+ denoting the most energy-friendly and G denoting the most energy-less energy-efficient class.
How is energy certification carried out?
The inspection of the building is carried out by authorized persons each in the part of their profession on the basis of the methodology of conducting the energy audit of buildings (a set of actions and procedures for conducting an energy audit of buildings, which also contains an algorithm for calculating the energy performance of buildings).
Energy audit of the building includes:
- preparatory actions,
- collecting all the necessary data and information about the building that are necessary for the implementation of the energy certification process of the building and determination of the energy class of the building,
- conducting control measurements as needed,
- an analysis of the consumption and costs of all forms of energy, energy and water for the period of the three preceding calendar years,
- proposal of measures to improve the energy efficiency of the building or to improve the energy performance of the building that are economically justified with the calculation of the return on investment period and the sources of prices for the implementation of the proposed measures,
- report and conclusion with recommendations and order of implementation of economically justified measures to improve the energy performance of buildings or energy performance of buildings.
In the process of conducting an energy audit of the building, analyses relating to:
- how to manage energy in the building
- thermal characteristics of the outer envelope (façade)
- heating system,
- cooling system
- ventilation and air conditioning system
- hot water supply system
- power supply, distribution and consumption system
- electric lighting system
- water supply system
- measurement, regulation and control system
- measurement, regulation and control system
The energy certificate of a new building is issued on the basis of data from the main project in relation to the rational use of energy and thermal protection of the building, the contractor’s written statement about the work performed and the building’s maintenance conditions, a visual inspection of the building and the final report of the supervising engineer on the performance if there was an obligation to make it .
The energy certification of the existing building includes the energy audit of the building, the necessary calculations for reference climate data to show the specific annual required thermal energy for heating, specific annual required thermal energy for cooling, specific annual delivered energy, specific annual primary energy, specific annual CO2 emissions, determination of the energy class of the building and creation of an energy certificate.
Existing buildings or their independent use units that are sold must have a valid energy certificate handed over to the buyer for inspection before concluding the sales contract.
Individual independent use units of buildings that are rented, leased or leased must have a valid energy certificate available for inspection by the lessee or lessee, before entering into a rental, leasing or lease agreement.
For any additional professional questions and information related to this topic, you can contact the Ministry on weekdays from 1 to 3 p.m. on phone: 01 3782 444.
Additional information:
- Zakon o gradnji (“Narodne novine” broj 153/13, 20/17, 39/19, 125/19)
- Pravilnik o energetskom pregledu zgrade i energetskom certificiranju (“Narodne novine” broj 88/17, 90/20, 1/21)
- Pravilnik o osobama ovlaštenim za energetsko certificiranje, energetski pregled zgrade i redoviti pregled sustava grijanja i sustava hlađenja ili klimatizacije u zgradi (“Narodne novine” broj 73/15, 133/15, 60/20)
- Pravilnik o kontroli energetskog certifikata zgrade i izvješća o redovitom pregledu sustava grijanja i sustava hlađenja ili klimatizacije u zgradi (“Narodne novine” broj 73/15, 54/20)
- Metodologija provođenja energetskog pregleda zgrada – primjenjuje se od 30.09.2017.
- Ostali propisi iz područja energetske učinkovitosti u zgradarstvu
Izvor: Ministarstvo prostornoga uređenja, graditeljstva i državne imovine.
