Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) need to be reformed to be effective, according to a new report published today by the Building Research Establishment (BRE).

Energy Performance Certificates: Enabling the Home Energy Transition, outlines how EPCs for existing homes need to develop to make them more useful.

Currently, EPCs have a ten-year lifespan, meaning that a certificate provided when a home is sold or rented may be up to a decade old, but the report argues that an EPC should be valid for five years to provide more up to date advice and information for homeowners.

The current headline EPC rating is also based on the cost to heat and light the home, and the required evidenced of improved efficiency is sometime haphazard.

Moving to a new set of headline ratings would help create a more trusted and stable measure of energy efficiency.

Gillian Charlesworth, chief executive of BRE, said: “Energy Performance Certificates cover 60 per cent of UK homes, and are key source of information used in planning retrofit programmes and in government policies. But too often the public see the certificates as just a bureaucratic necessity.”

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