The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)
The Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) is a mandatory government scheme which affects up to 10,000 UK organisations. The scheme has been designed to increase industry’s awareness of energy consumption to make it easier for businesses to take action, to lower their energy bills and lower the rate of carbon emissions across the UK.
The ethos behind the scheme is that reducing your energy consumption goes hand in hand with saving you money, so that the costs of the ESOS audit itself are more than paid back, if the identified energy saving measures are implemented.
Who does ESOS apply to?
ESOS will apply to your company if:
it has more than 250 employees
or
an annual turnover exceeding €50m and a balance sheet exceeding €43m.
For UK incorporate groups, if any part of the group qualifies for ESOS, then the whole group must comply,These large companies are now required to produce detailed reports on their energy use every four years. The qualification date and compliance date for each phase are provided below, as you can see we are now in Phase 2 of ESOS.
Phase | Qualification Date |
4 Year Compliance Phase |
Compliance Date |
Phase 1 | 31st December 2014 | 6th December 2011 - 5th December 2015 | 5th December 2015 |
Phase 2 (current) | 31st December 2018 | 6th December 2015 - 5th December 2019 | 5th December 2019 |
Phase 3 | 31st December 2022 | 6th December 2019 - 5th December 2023 | 5th December 2023 |
What do I need to do?
Your first and most important action is to find out whether your business needs to comply with ESOS. If the answer is yes, then you should contact an ESOS Consultant as soon as possible to plan your first audit. For phase 2 of ESOS this must be completed by 5th December 2019 and could take several months to pull together. Further ESOS audits will take place every four years from. An approved ESOS Lead Assessor is responsible for working with you and the key parties in your organisation to identify opportunities to reduce energy costs and target energy waste, detailing those opportunities in your ESOS Report before the 5th December 2019 deadline.
The audit will involve looking at how your business uses energy, including how energy is used in buildings, transport and industrial operations based on an analysis of energy data and site survey
Elmhurst's Role with ESOS
Elmhurst Energy works from the viewpoint that ESOS should be more about opportunity. Elmhurst Energy was one of the first organisations to gain approval to hold a government authorised register of ESOS Lead Assessors and now provides a high standard of training for ESOS consultants as a professional body for the scheme.
SEARCH FOR AN ESOS LEAD ASSESSOR >
Further Information about ESOS can also be found on our sister company's website.