Requirements of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (Directive 2012/27/EC or EED) and the relevant Hungarian and Central European legislation
In order to meet the European Union’s environmental targets for 2020 and 2030 (the EU is aiming to reach 20% energy saving by 2020 and 27% or greater by 2030), the European Commission introduced Directive 2012/27/EC (Article 8.4) establishing EU-wide energy efficiency requirements, and as part of the action plan, large companies are required to carry out regular energy audits prepared by qualified independent experts in order to evaluate their energy consumption and savings potential. With slight variations in the exact wording of requirements, most Member countries stipulate that companies having 250 or more employees or an annual turnover exceeding 50 million euros and balance sheet total exceeding 43 million euros are obliged to carry out an energy audit.
The universal deadline stipulated by the EED for the first energy audit of a company is 30th December 2015, which should be repeated every 4 years, but the law defines as deadline of the next energy auditing process 5th Dec 2019. Implementation of the EED’s dispositions to national legislation has been lagging behind in several Member States; however, as of end of September 2015 most of Central and Eastern European countries have adopted the energy audit obligation. Hungary adopted the Directive in May 2015 and determined the same deadlines for the energy audits as the EED includes. Companies operating an ISO 50001 system are exempt from the energy audit obligation as under the ISO 50001 standard, energy consumption is monitored for the most significant energy consuming units and devices. Please see the figure below for an overview of the energy audit requirements under Hungarian Law.
Figure 1: Summary of Hungarian legislation (Act LVII of 2015 on Energy Efficiency)
The energy audit should cover all major energy consuming facilities, including energy consumed for transportation, heating and cooling, lighting, industrial or other machine operation, among other aspects. In addition to identifying, quantifying and reporting current energy consumption, an energy audit is also designed to provide reliable technical and economic information for formulating feasible and cost-effective recommendations for energy efficiency improvement measures and packages of measures that would lead to measurable energy savings if implemented. As such, the energy audit can potentially have significant benefits in addition to ensuring compliance with legislative requirements, i.e. it can constitute the source of energy savings business planning.
MN6 Energy Agency – Experienced and reliable energy audit professionals
MN6 Energy Agency is a powerful team of energy experts, including engineers, energy professionals and economists. The MN6 Energy Agency provides energy managment services for the clients, which is a systematic and transparent manner to handle all the company’s energy related questions – in order to decrease the high energy costs and solve all energy related issues.
MN6 Energy Agency is an independent, private owned company. We enable our clients to provide transparent and competitive energy related services since 2011. We provide the following services:
- Energy management, energy control
- Auditing of bills and contracts
- Energy resourcing
- Consumption rationalization
- Investment planning
- Tendering advisory
- ESCO funding
- Project management
- Energy certification, and auditing
- Energy management system – ISO 50001
- Project communication
References of energy audits and introduction of energy management system ISO 50001 in 2015-16.:
– MN6 Energy Agency is an official auditor partner company of KPMG Energy Department and Sentient Hungary Kft.:
– Appeninn Holding Nyrt. – 16 office buildings energy management services.
– HMEI Zrt. introduction of energy management system ISO 50001
Kovács Emese
energy advisor
MN6 Energy Agency
t: 06306205389