Adeces (Asociación Pro Derechos Civiles Económicas y Sociales) has addressed the Ministers of Development, Industry and The Environment to denounce the apathy of the public administration in the process of updating the Basic Document on Energy Saving (DB-HE) that accumulates a delay of 11 months according to the Action Plan 2008-2012 (E4) of the Ministry of Industry.
As reported from the association, Measure 5 of the E4 refers to the review of the energy requirements in the building regulations, whose objective is to increase the requirements established in the Technical Building Code for new buildings or those that are rehabilitated. It then sets a deadline for these revisions to enter into force on 1 January 2010. In addition, the E4 dates from 2012 the imputable effects of energy savings of this measure, considering the time necessary for the materialization of the projects.
In April 2006, Adeces, described the DB-HE as "a lost opportunity to update the thermal requirements of Spanish buildings" because its approval accumulated a delay of 4 years on the provisions contained in the Building Planning Law and for "its lack of adaptation to the increase in energy prices". That delay allowed "that 2 million homes were built under the umbrella of the obsolete NBE-CT of 1978", denounce from the association, who assure that "again the neglect seems to take over those responsible for the public administration to promote the improvement of the DB-HE at a time when the price of oil is above 84 dollars".
According to the E4 it is up to the Council for Sustainability, Innovation and Quality of Building to proceed with the revision of the DB-HE, "but it gives the impression that once again Spain and its Autonomous Communities behave like a country that can afford to have levels of energy dependence higher than 80%".
Only Catalonia, in the same year of the approval of the DB-HE (2006), decided to approve the Eco-efficiency Decree, a norm that increased the requirements of the DB-HE by requiring that all new construction obtain 10 points through the incorporation of some of the measures that the Decree collects, to each of which the norm itself gives a value.
Precisely, "because of this apathy or lack of responsibility", Adeces decided to act in 2009, carrying out an International Study on the Effects of Thermal Standards in 6 European cities and transferring to those responsible for the autonomous governments the eight reasons why they should act improving the requirements of the DB-HE. Among them, the obligation to take advantage of the climatic advantage that Spain enjoys and that is nevertheless wasted by the thermal standard, which causes heating costs similar to those of Paris or London.
Authors: Air Conditioning
