The energy saving obligation under the Environment Act
From 1 January 2024, the Environment Act is expected to come into force.
The Environment Act is a compilation of a number of laws relating to our living environment. These include laws and regulations on construction, environment, water, spatial planning and nature. One of the themes in the Environment Act is the energy-saving obligation.
The Energy Conservation Obligation requires companies with energy consumption above 50,000 kWh of electricity or 25,000 m3 of natural gas to take all possible energy-saving measures with a payback period of five years or less. 1 December 2023 is the deadline for the second round of the Information Obligation. A new Approved Measures List will soon be published for this purpose.
The new recognised measures in 2023 (EML)
The new list of measures will be published in mid-April 2023. At best, then, the government also publishes amendment lists by industry. If not, we recommend you ask your industry association to create this change list. If there is or will be no change list, EAB will work with the customer on this equation.
We expect some measures to be added for each industry, and some measures to be tightened. Those measures must be controlled in your company. Either based on available paper or digital information (equipment lists, MYP), or on a site visit. You can start working on that as soon as the EML is published. When the Information Duty window opens then, filling in up-to-date data will most likely be a breeze.
Your company may not comply with the new or tightened measures. In fact, you have to comply from the moment the EML is published. In practice, the competent authority often gave a company two years to still implement the measure. This is expected to be the case again now.
But why wait? The sooner you pick up the measure, the sooner you will benefit from lower energy costs!
To ensure that the amendment to the energy saving obligation comes into force on 1 July 2023, the amendments will also be incorporated into the current Activities Decree on Environmental Management (see RVO website).
So from 1 July 2023, the following situation will apply.
Any company with consumption above 50,000 kWh or 25,000 m3 has an energy-saving obligation and is actively monitored by the government.
Want to know if you have an energy saving obligation? Then contact Energy Excellent and we will find out for you. The specialists are ready to go through the measures to be taken with you.
A separate duty applies to activities and buildings, more information on this can be found here.
