ESOS (the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme) is the Government’s mandatory energy auditing scheme for all large organisations in the UK. Any private organisation with more than 250 employees or a turnover greater than around £39m/year and a balance sheet total greater than around £33.5m must comply by carrying out regular energy audits of its operations, covering buildings, processes and transport.
ESOS was introduced in 2014 and runs in four-yearly compliance cycles. In the first Phase ending 5th December 2015, over 6,500 organisations complied. ClearLead helped a wide range of clients to meet their obligations by carrying out ESOS energy audits across a diverse range of sectors including food and drink, cold storage, furniture manufacture, building materials, plastics, glass manufacturing, electrical and electronics manufacturing, industrial services, airports, airlines and educational charities.
We are already more than halfway through Phase 2 and are seeing a marked increase in interest and activity as the compliance deadline of 5th December 2019 approaches. One notable feature of the Phase 1 was that a lot of activity was compressed into the last few months of the Phase, due in part to the nature and timing of the introduction of the ESOS legislation. Consequently, the prices went up and the quality went down (believe us, we’ve seen some shockers!). To avoid the same in Phase 2 and future Phases, we advise clients to think ahead and plan a strategy that spreads audits across the duration of a phase. As well as avoiding last minute panics and struggling to find suitably qualified and experienced auditors, this has the added advantage that the energy and cost saving benefits identified by the audits can be realised sooner!
ESOS audits can be carried out using in-house resources, provided the person carrying out or overseeing the audits is suitably qualified, or by using an external assessor, again provided that the assessor is suitably qualified. The Environment Agency have approved a number of Lead Assessor registration schemes, so it is important to choose an assessor registered to an approved scheme. ClearLead’s Lead Assessors are registered either with the Energy Institute’s Register of Professional Energy Consultants, or the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers’ Low Carbon Consultant registers.
To discuss ESOS compliance strategy or if you’d like a quote for a good quality ESOS audit, feel free to contact our ESOS Lead Assessor team here.
For more information on ESOS, please see our ESOS guide here