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Energy Efficiency General Information
2010 Energy Efficiency General Information Update
On 30 April 2009, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) announced that it would request the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) to increase the energy efficiency provisions in the 2010 edition of the Building Code of Australia (BCA).
In brief, COAG requested the ABCB to increase the energy efficiency provisions so that the 2010 BCA requires:
- a 6 star energy rating, or equivalent, for new residential buildings; and
- a significant increase in the energy efficiency requirements for all new commercial buildings.
These initiatives included energy efficiency requirements for hot water in new houses and lighting in new houses and apartments with all proposals being subject to regulatory impact assessment. The new provisions were introduced in BCA 2010.
Background
In response to concerns over global warming, the Australian Government announced in July 2000 that agreement had been reached with industry and State and Territory Governments to adopt a two-pronged approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. The first approach was the introduction of mandatory minimum energy performance requirements through the Building Code of Australia (BCA), and the second approach was the encouragement of best practice voluntary initiatives by industry. Industry was supportive of this two-pronged approach, taking the view that building-related matters should be consolidated in the BCA wherever possible.
Given the importance of the energy performance of buildings to overall national greenhouse gas emissions performance, the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) and the Australian Greenhouse Office signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly develop the BCA Energy Efficiency Provisions.
The Energy Efficiency Project was endorsed under the National Framework for Energy Efficiency (NFEE), an agreement between all Australian Governments established to improve energy efficiency. The objective of NFEE is to unlock the significant economic potential associated with increased implementation of energy efficiency technologies and processes to deliver a least cost approach to energy efficiency in Australia.
Provisions were first introduced in BCA 2003 for housing and progressively introduced for other building classifications in BCA 2005 and BCA 2006. The stringency of these provisions has been progressively increased and the scope of the provisions has been widened in BCA 2010.
Communications
To enable the effective involvement of stakeholders in the development of the BCA Energy Efficiency Provisions, in 2000 several committees and working groups comprising representatives from a range of government, industry and community organisations were developed.
At specific stages of the project, the ABCB sought the views of the wider community. This process was undertaken when the ABCB released the Directions Report on the Energy Efficiency Project (2001), and on the release of Regulation Documents (RDs) and Regulatory Impact Statements (RISs). Any proposed annual changes to the BCA are also made public prior to finalisation.