Core Team 3 – Certification including control systems & quality of inspection
All Member States are required to set up certification and disclosure schemes for buildings, and inspection schemes for heating and air-condition systems. Most of the demands for certification and inspection are from the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive from 2002 and had to be fully implemented by, at the latest, 2009. Most countries therefore already have the systems in place, covering most of these topics.
This team has a member from each country (contact point) and is responsible for one stream during the CA meetings. It deals with certification of buildings and quality of certification and independent control systems covering both inspections and certification. The work has a special focus on monitoring and quality.
The major challenge for the MS is the quality and full implementation of certification and inspection systems to ensure full impact of these systems are realised, rather than the establishment of them, the CA IV supports the MS in these efforts. Establishing certification systems was the key topic of the three previous concerted actions and, nevertheless, it is still necessary to support the transposition in some MS where delays have been communicated.
The area of inspections is still under implementation, in particular for air-conditioning systems and for those countries where alternative measures have been declared for inspection (articles 14 and 15).
Large attention will be placed on the training and independency of inspectors and on the systems for quality checking and independent control mechanisms. The role of the independent control system plays an essential part in the way these measures (certification and inspection) can help to can maximize their impact. Independent control systems will be a central part of the work in this Core Team.
It is assumed that many lessons have been learned both from implementation and monitoring, and that some of the major tasks will be linked to the sharing of these experiences and to develop material on how to improve and ensure the use of certification and inspection reports and control systems.
This Core Team refers to the following articles of the Directive 2010/31/EU:
- Article 11 to 13 for Certification
- Article 14 and 15 – support to the Core Team” Existing Buildings and Inspection”. With focus on quality and control system
- Article 17 on “Independent Experts”
- Article 18 on “Independent Control Systems”
- Annex II on Independent control systems for Certification and Inspection
This Core Team will report on Article 11, 12, 13, 17 and Annex II of the Directive 2012/31/EU.
Overarching topics are Quality in Certification and Inspection, Independency of Experts and progress with Certification in general. Regarding the topic Inspection, this Core Team will support the Core Team “Existing Buildings and Inspections”
Some key topics for certification and quality of inspection will be:
- Quality of certification systems for buildings
- Quality of inspection systems for heating systems and AC systems
- Training of independent experts
- Independent control systems for certifications and inspections
- Quality and effectiveness of the independent control system
More themes and working groups can be set up for quality, capacity and training during the work in the CA.
Activities of this Core Team
Most countries have developed systems and have experience with the monitoring of Certification of Buildings, Inspection of Heating Systems and to some extent with Inspection of Air-Conditioning and Independent Control Systems. This team’s work will hence focus less on the basic development of such systems and more on the improvement of systems, the quality of reports and certificates, the monitoring, development of databases and capacity building. Support / information will however be provided to the MS who are still in the transposition phase.
This team will also consider the quality of the inspection of heating and air conditioning systems as they are also covered by the requirements of the article 18, however, general discussions on inspection systems and alternative measures will be handled by the Central Team on Existing Buildings. This topic will therefore be handled in close cooperation with the Core Team “Existing Buildings”.