Dear xx on behalf of Mr yy,
The exemption letter you provided for aa bb cc does unfortunately not meet Ofgem’s requirements for a valid exemption letter.
Although the building is exempt the letter provided fails to describe the situation correctly or give enough detail. By looking at examples of exemption letters which Ofgem feel qualify as correct, we can see that they expect the letter provided to be specific to an individual site, and require them to be more explicit about the building as well as relating it back to points from within the legislation. I have included examples of text from letters which Ofgem qualify as valid below to help with the rewriting of the letter.
‘ I confirm that the above array installed at this location is on the of an agricultural building with no heating system and is therefore exempt from providing an EPC Report to accompany the Feed in Tariff application as per Clause 3.3 which states that:
A relevant building is defined in legislation and must be a roofed construction which has walls. And for which energy is used to condition the indoor climate. Examples of energy being used to condition the indoor climate include heating and cooling systems. If any aspect of this definition does not apply to a building to which the PV installation is attached or wired to provide electricity to then the energy efficiency requirements does not apply ‘
‘ Panels referred to as the ….. Is mostly used for the storage although a large part of it is currently empty. The front end contains a small equine supplies outlet. This had sectioned off into basic office space, sales/display area and storage. There are, however, no fixed services for heating. Under the legislation this would described as an agricultural building with low energy use and as such would not require an EPC.
Please see photographs and references attached.’
‘ Under the EU regulations the UK was required to implement the requirements of the energy Performance if Buildings Directive (Directive 2002/91/EC)- the EPBD.
Within the criteria certain buildings were made exempt form requirements and in particular the barn mentioned above. The instruction stated that the following buildings do not need EPC’s:
Industrial sites, workshops and non-residential agricultural buildings with low energy demand.
This is a non-relevant building because the indoor climate is not controlled or conditioned and the building is not connected to any other relevant building,
I am a level 4 commercial energy assessor registered with National Energy Services NHER, my registration number is …../ I am both registered and qualified to make the above statement.’
From previous examples it is useful to pay mention to the photographic evidence provided within the text.
We would advise you contact your EPC assessor to get this letter re-written, this circumstance has occurred for a number of sites so your assessor may already be aware of this issue. Please let us know when you’ve managed to get this document updated to include more relevant information we will then be able to send it off to Ofgem for approval.
Please be aware that if you have submitted a read this quarter we will be able to make an out of process payment to yourself after we receive an approved exemption letter.
