Overview of DHC Legislative Framework

Overview of DHC Legislative Framework

Country

Spain

#

Name and reference of measure

Type of measure

Responsible organ

Existing or planned?

1

RITE - Regulation of Thermal Installations in Buildings

Decree

Presidency Ministry

Existing

Legislative Framework

“This Royal Decree has been introduced in a national level and transposes the Directive 2002/91/EC on the energy performance of buildings related to the energy efficiency of thermal installations in buildings.”

“It has been drafted with the necessity of transpose the Directive 2002/91/EC and the appearance of the RD-47/2007 (template IVA#1). This Decree transposes the Regulation of Thermal Installations in Buildings before (dated in 1998).”

This RD is included in a measure to develop a National Strategic Plan about saving energy and energy efficiency (2005-2007) and tries to achieve the objectives established in a previous Plan (2000-2010) fomenting a large use of solar thermal energy.

“The Regulation of Thermal Installations in Buildings emphasizes the convenience of the use of centralized production systems, by building or group of buildings, and even network connections from urban central.”

This regulation has no real impact in DHC because the recommendation it does about the use of DHC networks is only a comment with no kind of link with any obligation. So this is only a mention for designers.

But regarding to the specifications of the regulation, it influences in the planning part of all the installation (the design), the generation, distribution and demand have to accomplish

Purpose of the Legislation

The purpose of this legislation is on one hand the contribution to the improvement of the air quality in the cities and on the other hand add the elements to fight against the climate change.

The purpose is also to foment the installation of low emission boilers which permit the reduction of nitrogen oxides and other pollutants.

This legislation includes the basic exigencies of saving energy referred to the efficiency of thermal installations setting the minimum requirements of efficiency that had to achieve these installations in new buildings and the conditions of inspection procedures.

With this exigencies the legalization of the installations is also included in this legislation, also the legalization for DHC systems:

“Supporting documentation:

The necessary project to legalize the installations has to include at least:

- The justification of all the compliance with the requirement for energy efficiency of all the basic exigencies of the legislation.

- Study of all the loads and emissions.

- Justification of the chosen system.

- In new buildings with a thermal installation and a useful surface bigger than 1000 sqm, the justification may include the comparison of the system with other systems, this is applied to the following systems:

…

Connection to a DHC when it already exists.

This comparison depends on the climate and the specific characteristics of the building.”

This legislation is very positive in terms of energy due to the decrease of energy consumption of the buildings, but taking into account the climate in Spain, we have to disguise between different climate areas.

Regarding to warm areas, this measure is in prejudice to DHC because of the low loads of heating in winter, the period long only for two months, and for cooling is more or less the same, the period for cooling is not so long. With this measure the demands decrease leading to the viability of a DHC systems is zero.

There are other areas with extreme weather. Very long and cold winter, and a warm summer.

The measures described in this regulation impact in almost all the phases of a DHC system specially in the design phase of the generation, distribution and design, also in the legalization.