Public sector leading on energy efficiency
1. Member States shall ensure that the total final energy consumption of all public bodies combined is reduced by at least 1,9 % each year, when compared to 2021.
Member States may choose to exclude public transport or the armed forces from the obligation laid down in the first subparagraph.
For the purposes of the first and second subparagraphs, Member States shall establish a baseline, which includes the final energy consumption of all public bodies, except in public transport or the armed forces, for 2021. Energy consumption reduction of public transport and armed forces is indicative and may still count for fulfilling the obligation under the first subparagraph even if excluded from the baseline under this Article.
2. During a transitional period ending on 11 October 2027 the target set out in paragraph 1 shall be indicative. During that transitional period, Member States may use estimated consumption data, and, by the same date, Member States shall adjust the baseline and align the estimated final energy consumption of all public bodies to the actual final energy consumption of all public bodies.
3. The obligation laid down in paragraph 1 shall not include, until 31 December 2026, the energy consumption of public bodies in local administrative units with a population of less than 50 000 and, until 31 December 2029, the energy consumption of public bodies in local administrative units with a population of less than 5 000 inhabitants.
4. A Member State may take into account climatic variations within it when calculating its public bodies’ final energy consumption.
5. Member States shall include in the updates, submitted pursuant to Article 14(2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, of their national energy and climate plans, notified pursuant to Article 3 and Articles 7 to 12 of that Regulation, the amount of energy consumption reduction to be achieved by all public bodies, disaggregated by sector, and the measures that they plan to adopt for the purpose of achieving those reductions. As part of their integrated national energy and climate progress reports submitted pursuant to Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, Member States shall report to the Commission the final energy consumption reduction achieved every year.
6. Member States shall ensure that regional and local authorities establish specific energy efficiency measures in their long-term planning tools, such as decarbonisation or sustainable energy plans, after consulting relevant stakeholders, including energy agencies where appropriate, and the public, including, in particular, vulnerable groups which are at risk of being affected by energy poverty or are more susceptible to its effects.
Member States shall also ensure that the competent authorities take actions to mitigate significant negative direct or indirect impacts of energy efficiency measures on energy poor, low-income households or vulnerable groups when designing and implementing energy efficiency measures.
7. Member States shall support public bodies. Such support may, without prejudice to the State aid rules, include financial and technical support, for the purpose of taking up energy efficiency improvement measures and encouraging public bodies to take into account the wider benefits beyond energy savings, for example the quality of the indoor environment, including at regional and local level, by providing guidelines, promoting competence building, the acquisition of skills and training opportunities, and by encouraging cooperation among public bodies.
8. Member States shall encourage public bodies to consider life cycle carbon emissions as well as the economic and social benefits of their public bodies’ investment and policy activities.
9. Member States shall encourage public bodies to improve the energy performance of buildings owned or occupied by public bodies, including by means of the replacement of old and inefficient heaters.
Exemplary role of public bodies’ buildings
1. Without prejudice to Article 7 of Directive 2010/31/EU, each Member State shall ensure that at least 3 % of the total floor area of heated and/or cooled buildings that are owned by public bodies is renovated each year to be transformed into at least nearly zero-energy buildings or zero-emission buildings in accordance with Article 9 of Directive 2010/31/EU.
Member States may choose which buildings to include in the 3 % renovation requirement, giving due consideration to cost-effectiveness and technical feasibility in the choice of buildings to renovate.
Member States may exempt social housing from the obligation to renovate referred to in the first subparagraph where such renovations would not be cost neutral or would lead to rent increases for people living in social housing unless such rent increases are no higher than the economic savings on the energy bill.
Where public bodies occupy a building that they do not own, they shall negotiate with the owner, in particular when reaching a trigger point such as the renewal of rental, change of use, significant repair or maintenance work, with the aim of establishing contractual clauses for the building to become at least a nearly zero-energy building or zero-emission building.
The rate of at least 3 % shall be calculated on the total floor area of buildings which have a total useful floor area of over 250 m 2 , that are owned by public bodies and that, on 1 January 2024, are not nearly zero-energy buildings.
2. Member States may apply requirements that are less stringent than those laid down in paragraph 1 for the following categories of buildings:
(a)
buildings officially protected as part of a designated environment, or because of their special architectural or historical merit, in so far as compliance with certain minimum energy performance requirements would alter their character or appearance unacceptably;
(b)
buildings owned by the armed forces or central government and serving national defence purposes, apart from single living quarters or office buildings for the armed forces and other staff employed by national defence authorities;
(c)
buildings used as places of worship and for religious activities.
Member States may decide not to renovate any building that is not referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph up to the level provided for in paragraph 1 if they assess that it is not technically, economically or functionally feasible for that building to be transformed into a nearly zero-energy building. Where they so decide, Member States shall not count the renovation of that building towards the fulfilment of the requirement set out in paragraph 1.
3. In order to front load energy savings and to provide an incentive for early action, a Member State that renovates more than 3 % of the total floor area of its buildings in accordance with paragraph 1 in any year until 31 December 2026 may count the surplus towards the annual renovation rate of any of the following three years. A Member State that renovates more than 3 % of the total floor area of its buildings as of 1 January 2027 may count the surplus towards the annual renovation rate of the following two years.
4. Member States may count towards the annual renovation rate of buildings new buildings owned as replacements for specific public bodies’ buildings demolished in any of the two previous years. This shall apply only where they would be more cost effective and sustainable in terms of the energy and lifecycle CO 2 emissions achieved compared to the renovations of such buildings. The general criteria, methodologies and procedures to identify such exceptional cases shall be clearly set out and published by each Member State.
5. By 11 October 2025, Member States shall, for the purposes of this Article, establish and make publicly available and accessible an inventory of heated and/or cooled buildings that are owned or occupied by public bodies and that have a total useful floor area of more than 250 m 2 . Member States shall update that inventory at least every two years. The inventory shall be linked to the building stock overview carried out in the framework of the national building renovation plans in accordance with Directive 2010/31/EU and the relevant databases.
Publicly available and accessible data about building stock characteristics, buildings renovation and energy performance may be aggregated by the EU Building Stock Observatory to ensure a better understanding of the energy performance of the building sector through comparable data.
The inventory shall contain at least the following data:
(a)
the floor area in m 2 ;
(b)
the measured annual energy consumption of heat, cooling, electricity and hot water when those data are available;
(c)
the energy performance certificate of each building issued in accordance with Directive 2010/31/EU.
6. Member States may decide to apply an alternative approach to that set out in paragraphs 1 to 4 for the purpose of achieving, every year, an amount of energy savings in the buildings of public bodies which is at least equivalent to the amount required in paragraph 1.
For the purpose of applying that alternative approach, Member States shall:
(a)
ensure that, each year, a renovation passport is introduced, where applicable, for buildings representing at least 3 % of the total floor area of heated and/or cooled buildings that are owned by public bodies. For those buildings, the renovation to nearly zero-energy building shall be achieved at the latest by 2040;
(b)
estimate the energy savings that paragraphs 1 to 4 would generate by using appropriate standard values for the energy consumption of reference public bodies’ buildings before and after renovation to be transformed into nearly zero-energy buildings as referred to in Directive 2010/31/EU.
Member States that decide to apply the alternative approach shall notify to the Commission, by 31 December 2023, their projected energy savings to achieve at least the equivalent of energy savings in the buildings covered by paragraph 1 by 31 December 2030.
Public procurement
1. Member States shall ensure that contracting authorities and contracting entities, when concluding public contracts and concessions with a value equal to or greater than the thresholds laid down in Article 8 of Directive 2014/23/EU, Article 4 of Directive 2014/24/EU and Article 15 of Directive 2014/25/EU, purchase only products, services buildings and works with high energy-efficiency performance in accordance with the requirements referred to in Annex IV to this Directive, unless it is not technically feasible.
Member States shall also ensure that in concluding the public contracts and concessions with a value equal to or greater than the thresholds referred to in the first subparagraph, contracting authorities and contracting entities apply the energy efficiency first principle in accordance with Article 3, including for those public contracts and concessions for which no specific requirements are provided for in Annex IV.
2. The obligations referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall not apply if they undermine public security or impede the response to public health emergencies. The obligations referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall apply to the contracts of the armed forces only to the extent that their application does not cause any conflict with the nature and primary aim of the activities of the armed forces. The obligations shall not apply to contracts for the supply of military equipment as defined in Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 39 ) .
3. Notwithstanding Article 29(4), Member States shall ensure that contracting authorities and contracting entities assess the feasibility of concluding long-term energy performance contracts that provide long-term energy savings when procuring service contracts with significant energy content.
4. Without prejudice to paragraph 1 of this Article, when purchasing a product package fully covered by a delegated act adopted under Regulation (EU) 2017/1369, Member States may require that the aggregate energy efficiency take priority over the energy efficiency of individual products within that package, by purchasing the product package that complies with the criterion of belonging to the highest available energy efficiency class.
5. Member States may require that contracting authorities and contracting entities, when concluding contracts as referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, take into account, where appropriate, wider sustainability, social, environmental and circular economy aspects in procurement practices with a view to achieving the Union’s decarbonisation and zero pollution objectives. Where appropriate, and in accordance with Annex IV, Member States shall require contracting authorities and contracting entities to take into account Union green public procurement criteria or available equivalent national criteria.
To ensure transparency in the application of energy efficiency requirements in the procurement process, Member States shall ensure that contracting authorities and contracting entities make publicly available information on the energy efficiency impact of contracts with a value equal to or greater than the thresholds referred to in paragraph 1 by publishing that information in the respective notices on Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), in accordance with Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU, and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1780 ( 40 ) . Contracting authorities may decide to require that tenderers disclose information on the life cycle global warming potential, the use of low carbon materials and the circularity of materials used for a new building and for a building to be renovated. Contracting authorities may make that information publicly available for the contracts, in particular for new buildings having a floor area larger than 2 000 m 2 .
Member States shall support contracting authorities and contracting entities in the uptake of energy efficiency requirements, including at regional and local level, by providing clear rules and guidelines including methodologies on the assessment of life cycle costs and environment impacts and costs, setting up competence support centres, encouraging cooperation amongst contracting authorities, including across borders, and using aggregated procurement and digital procurement where possible.
6. Where appropriate, the Commission may provide further guidance to national authorities and procurement officials in the application of energy efficiency requirements in the procurement process. Such support may strengthen existing fora for the purpose of supporting Member States, such as by means of concerted action, and may assist them in taking the green public procurement criteria into account.
7. Member States shall establish the legal and regulatory provisions, and administrative practices, regarding public purchasing and annual budgeting and accounting, necessary to ensure that individual contracting authorities are not deterred from making investments in improving energy efficiency and from using energy performance contracting and third-party financing mechanisms on a long-term contractual basis.
8. Member States shall remove any regulatory or non-regulatory barriers to energy efficiency, in particular as regards legal and regulatory provisions, and administrative practices, regarding public purchasing and annual budgeting and accounting, with a view to ensuring that individual public bodies are not deterred from making investments in improving energy efficiency and from using energy performance contracting and third-party financing mechanisms on a long-term contractual basis.
Member States shall report to the Commission on the measures taken to address the barriers to uptake of energy efficiency improvements as part of their integrated national energy and climate progress reports submitted pursuant to Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
