EPC on commercial "shed" any chance of a waiver?

[solarfred]

Can't find any posts on this but they must be here somewhere. I have a metal clad building used as processing plant for small brewery. 18m x 8m. Open ended newish building. No insulation. No grid connection. No office space. We need EPC for FIT tariff but can we get exemption or only 50% of available FIT as no chance of a D rating? Or is there a way?

 

[TedM]

Does the building use energy for heating or cooling? If not then all you need is a letter from an EPC assessor to say that it is a non-relevant building. If the PV is connected to the grid via another building then you will need an EPC for that other building.

See Microgeneration Certification Scheme - Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)

 

[solarfred]

Thanks Ted. I have read all the information and spoken to EDF.
The building is not attached to any other building.
It does not have an office as such but there is a chair and a picnic table where you sit and have a cup of tea in the corner but no walls to this area it is open.There are no internal walls at all.
The only fly in the ointment is there is a wood burning stove which may tip it over the edge of "relevent building" ??? For the sake of doubling the FIT I would take this out if it does cause a problem?
I would rather have ammunition before getting the assessor on site as it is a massive difference in income on 10kw. 14.37p or 7.29p.

 

[Worcester]

Is the wood boiler there to provide a 'conditioned environment' i.e. warm the place or is it there for the mash tuns?

If it there to warm the place, you'll need the epc. (after all why would you want to heat the outside world, if the objective is to warm the environment)

 

[solarfred]

It is there to provide a modicum of heat in the depths of winter. It will have to come out. If it is then defined as "exempt" the customer will be happy.

 

[TedM]

If this shed has no grid connection then what are you going to connect to?

 

[solarfred]

Victron Inverter/charger + batteries + generator with thermal dumps. Power required will be intermittent but quite high sometimes so generator will top up if required for peaks. PV will run most base loads daily. We are planning to add a separate commercial offshoot to use the excess PV in summer rather than waste it.
Various EPC assessors have given me so much bunkum! Still looking for a local who knows their stuff. The last one said I need to go to the local building control officer about EPC exemption letter.

 

[Mattty]

Victron Inverter/charger + batteries + generator with thermal dumps. Power required will be intermittent but quite high sometimes so generator will top up if required for peaks. PV will run most base loads daily. We are planning to add a separate commercial offshoot to use the excess PV in summer rather than waste it.
Various EPC assessors have given me so much bunkum! Still looking for a local who knows their stuff. The last one said I need to go to the local building control officer about EPC exemption letter.

Some Accreditation schemes have advised their energy assessors to not do exemption letters because of the implications of getting it wrong. A lot of energy assessors just use pay per click insurance which wouldn't cover offering exemption letters.

It is such a grey area. The good news is that a non domestic EPC is CO2 based so a wood burning stove would be seen a renewable heating source and is positive for the result and 10kW of PV will help the result too. Now if you have efficient lighting in place then it would likely get the D rating.

However, if it's open ended then you can't do an EPC as there is no way to enter that in to the software. Got any photos?

Can you get Fits without a mains supply?

 

[solarfred]

Did I say there was a WBS? Don't know where that came from....
A kind contributor has directed me to an assessor locally who is doing the letter. (Thanks)
There is LED lighting throughout as using a generator you are automatically going to be looking for low energy loads. Having the PV means the huge generator will go replaced by a much smaller affair as you have to a some emergency backup.

Yes FIT's is available because you are using renewable energy to power the building thus supporting the government (EU) directive but you cannot have export payment obviously. Batteries are not "green" but possible better than gallons of diesel.

Of course you can't get scaffolding for love nor money at the moment so maybe that's the business to be in.

 

[Mattty]

With LED, biomass and 10kW PV a circus marque could get a good EPC rating.

But as you don't have biomass and you don't technically have a building under the definition in the regs due to a missing wall - then it's exempt.