HVCA subsidiary Building Engineering Services Competence Accreditation (BESCA) has been approved by the Department for Communities and Local Government to run an accreditation scheme for energy assessors.
Many of the provisions of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive were implemented in England through revisions
to the Building Regulations, introduced in April 2006.

The remainder - which relate to the provision of building energy performance certificates (EPCs) and the regular inspection of air conditioning equipment - were addressed by the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections (England and Wales) Regulations, which came into force last March.

'These require owners of all buildings to have a current EPC - and all 'publicly owned and publicly accessed' premises to feature a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) confirming the energy usage of the building,' said Bob Towse, HVCA head of technical and safety.

For commercial buildings, the regulations state that a current EPC must be in place at handover, construction, sale or rental.

The regulations also state that air conditioning systems with a cooling capacity of 12kW or more must be inspected by a competent person, who will provide a report detailing measures that would improve the energy efficiency of the system.

All systems with a cooling capacity of 250kW or more are required to have been inspected by January 2009, and the remainder by January 2011.

Bob Towse stressed that the persons carrying out all of these inspections and assessments must be members of a Government-approved accreditation scheme - such as the one being established by BESCA.

'The HVCA believes that there are many skilled individuals within its member firms who are ideally qualified to undertake these new mandatory inspections and assessments,' said Mr Towse.

'We therefore anticipate a steady stream of enquiries to BESCA during the next few months'.

The HVCA also expects the new regulations to encourage greater emphasis on routine service and maintenance and the refurbishment of sub-standard premises.

BESCA was established by the HVCA in 2006 to operate a competent persons scheme in England and Wales for residential and non-residential heating and non-residential ventilation and air conditioning, and is currently developing a similar scheme for Scotland and Northern Ireland.