Scottish Building Regulations: Proposed changes to Energy Standards and associated topics, including Ventilation, Overheating and Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

We consulted on proposed improvements to standards set through Scottish building regulations between July and November 2021.

We asked you for your views on a range of key topics relating to the energy and environmental performance of buildings, including:

• Options for Improved performance targets which will reduce emissions from new buildings and the introduction of an energy target for new buildings.
• A focus on delivering improvement at a building level which reduces energy demand, including improved fabric insulation in new homes to reduce heating needs, measures which support effective use of on-site generation of power and simplify connection of new buildings to heat networks.
• Support for 2024 heat decarbonisation proposals - removing emissions target for new buildings that avoid ‘direct emissions heating systems’ and requiring new buildings to be designed for easy retrofit of ‘zero direct emissions’ heat solutions, where not already installed.
• Changes to ventilation standards to reflect the expectation of improved levels of insulation, resulting in reduced air leakage /infiltration and a new requirement to assess summer overheating risk in new homes and residential buildings, recognising projected future increases in temperature.
• Provisions of electric vehicle charging facilities in new buildings and some existing buildings.

Consultation activity ran from 26/07/2021 to 28/11/2021 and received a total of 176 responses.  156 were from organisations and 20 were from individuals.  Of the responses received, 43 respondents instructed that their responses should not be published. Of these 43 responses, 5 were from individuals and 39 from organisations.  Accordingly, following final QA checks, 133 consultation responses were published on the consultation webpage.

In general, there was significant and positive support for the majority of the proposed improvements to energy standards and for the changes to environmental provisions (ventilation and overheating). Responses represented a range of views and offered useful insight into many aspects of the proposals. The full consultation analysis and report is published separately at: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781804356012.

We have confirmed a range of changes to building regulations, based upon the consultation proposals and your responses to them.

• We will introduce a delivered energy target for new buildings.
• We will set higher targets for the energy and emission performance of new buildings. For new homes, these will be to the ‘improved’ consultation option, delivering a further 32% aggregate reduction in building emissions. For new non-domestic buildings, these will be between the ‘medium’ and ‘high’ consultation options, delivering around a 20% aggregate reduction in building emissions.
• We will introduce improved fabric standards for new buildings and adopt the proposed new approach to on-site generating of power and connection to heat networks.
• We will implement changes which support the planned move to ‘zero direct emissions’ heat in new buildings from 2024.
• We will progress general changes to standards set for all buildings including improved standards for a range of building services.
• We will amend guidance on domestic ventilation and introduce the proposed new standard for overheating assessment in new homes and similar residential buildings.
• We will use the information provided on improving compliance with energy standards to develop our ‘compliance manual’ for energy and environmental standards as part of ongoing compliance work.
• Changes to introduce requirements for electric vehicle charging facilities will be progressed separately for 2023.

We have published the Scottish Government Response to the consultation process.

Next Steps

Revised Building Standards Technical Handbooks and further supporting documents will set out the full extent of changes applicable to new buildings and new building work from 1 February 2023. These Handbooks, together with a summary of the changes are published at: https://www.gov.scot/policies/building-standards/monitoring-improving-building-regulations/.

Regulations to enable these changes were laid in April 2022 and were amended in mid-June to reflect a revised December 2022 implementation date for the new standards. In November 2022, implementation was then further deferred to 1 February 2023 in response to delays in the deployment of tools implementing the UK calculation methodology.