Practical recommendations for implementing §71a GEG for existing buildings
What is it about?
Non-residential buildings with a rated output of the heating or air conditioning system of more than 290 kilowatts must have digital energy monitoring technology from 01.01.2025.
What does the law require?
The GEG places the following requirements on digital energy monitoring technology:
- Continuous monitoring, logging and analysis of consumption of all main energy sources and all technical building systems
- Common and freely configurable interface
- Requirement values in relation to the energy efficiency of the building
- efficiency losses of technical building systems can be detected and
Designation of a person responsible for building energy management
What does this mean in practice?
The requirements of the GEG are quite vague and leave room for interpretation with regard to the scope of monitoring. We recommend making active use of this and focusing on the creation of meaningful key figures. If these are set up sensibly and analyzed continuously, the objective of the legal obligations will be met.
We therefore recommend the following procedure:
- Identification of the key components of the technical building system with regard to the energy efficiency of the building
- Definition of meaningful key figures for building efficiency
- Determination of the necessary measuring points in order to form the key figures
- Installation of measuring points that do not yet exist (if required)
- Integration of the key figures into monitoring software
- Assignment of organizational responsibility (person + process) for monitoring the key figures
We would be happy to draw up a concept for setting up such a system and make you a proposal for implementation using econ energy monitoring.
What is a technical building system?
According to the GEG, technical building systems are defined as "technical equipment of a building or part of a building for
- space heating,
- space cooling,
- ventilation,
- water heating for domestic use,
- built-in lighting,
- building automation and control,
- electricity generation at the building site
or a combination thereof, including systems that use energy from renewable sources".
Frequently asked questions about the impact of §71a GEG:
Are small installations considered together?
A "system" is defined as all components of a system type that are connected to each other by a common distribution system. Example: Three connected heating systems of 150 kW each are considered a system with 450 kW and therefore fall under §71a GEG.
How should process heat be handled?
The use of energy for production processes in buildings is excluded from the scope of the GEG. In our opinion, this means that only the maximum output required for building energy can be used to determine the relevant nominal output for mixed-use heating systems.
The obligations under §71a GEG do not apply to consumption in the production process.
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This information does not constitute legal advice. We accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information provided.