More than 45,000* businesses in the EU risk fines of up to €1 million if they fail to comply with Article 8 of the European Energy Efficiency Directive by the deadline of December 5, 2019.
The European Energy Efficiency Directive requires large enterprises to comply with the national energy audit obligation, which includes calculating their total energy consumption and identifying saving opportunities across their estate, every four years. Large enterprises are defined as those with at least 250 employees, or annual revenue of more than EUR 50 million and an annual balance sheet of over EUR 43 million.
Organizations with multiple operations across Europe must meet the legislative requirements in each EU Member State they operate in. All 28 countries have their own specific audit requirements, which are often only available in local language, which makes achieving compliance challenging.
DNV GL has launched a new online tool, MEET8 to support businesses through the European Energy Efficiency Directive compliance process. MEET8 allows organizations to easily and quickly collect the data required to self-assess their compliance. The tool automatically generates compliance reports, and lists the energy audit requirements, scopes, and exemptions for each EU country where the organization operates.
“Since each of the 28 EU member states has different compliance requirements, submitting the correct information can be a cumbersome task,” Prajeev Rasiah, Executive Vice President for DNV GL’s energy business in North Europe, Middle East & Africa, said.
“To simplify the process, our tool gives businesses access to a single knowledge hub of comprehensive information and policy experts who have deep knowledge of the regulatory variations and timescale requirements for all 28 Member States,” Rasiah added.
Al-Karim Govindji, Director, Sustainable Energy Use Northern Europe, Middle East and Africa at DNV GL, said, “This new online tool takes the stress out of compliance and ensures organizations are prepared with the most up to date trusted information, to enable them to build their own action plan without compromising on reliability and accuracy.”
*Eurostat – Annual enterprise statistics by size class for special aggregates of activities.