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Energy

Ecodesign preparatory study for Building Automation and Control Systems

Introduction

The preparatory study for Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS) aims at providing the European Commission with a technical, environmental and economic analysis of BACS in accordance with Article 15 of the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC.

It is based on the Methodology for Ecodesign of Energy-related Products (MEErP), a support tool for experts, used to prepare draft implementing measures.

  • MEErP, as established in 2011, was developed to allow evaluating whether and to what extent various energy-related products fulfil certain criteria according to Article 15 and Annex I and/or II of the Ecodesign Directive that make them eligible for implementing measures. This methodology requires the contractor to carry out 7 tasks, ranging from product definition to policy scenario analysis:
    1. Scope (definitions, standards and legislation)
    2. Markets (volumes and prices)
    3. Users (product demand side)
    4. Technologies (product supply side, includes both BAT and BNAT)
    5. Environment & Economics (base case LCA & LCC)
    6. Design options
    7. Scenarios (Policy, scenario, impact and sensitivity analysis)
  • Energy-related products are defined in directive 2009/125/EC, Article 2, item 1: "Energy-related product means any good that has an impact on energy consumption during use, which is placed on the market and/or put into service ...(including parts) ... of which the environmental performance can be assessed independently."

Furthermore, this study also seeks to complement the ongoing/recent studies addressing the development of a smart readiness indicator for buildings and smart appliances under the Ecodesign Directive respectively.

A scoping study was performed (from October 2017 to September 2018) to define the product scope, to identify the focus areas and the direction of the subsequent preparatory study.

It was divided in two overarching tasks:

  • Task 1 - Definition of the product group(s) and system boundaries with options for scoping a full preparatory study.
  • Task 2 – Screening of product groups and MEErP recommendation

Based on the scoping, a preparatory study on BACS started on 11 July 2019, following the MEErP methodology in the extent possible.

Registration and contact

The European Commission is offering stakeholders the opportunity to provide input to this study, thereby creating a fully transparent and open process.

All (draft) documents will be freely available through this website, but if you register as stakeholder you will also receive notifications on website updates. As stakeholder, you can also provide direct feedback to draft reports published on this website and make suggestions for energy-related products. Please note that your comments and suggestions may be made public on this website.

To register, please use this form. If you would like to contact the study team, please email to: 4bacs@vito.be

Registrations for the second stakeholder meeting are now open and possible via this form. For information on timing, please consult the project planning table below.

Project planning

DateEvent/plan
16 October 2017Start contract for scoping BACS study
6 November 2017Launch website
17 January 2018Stakeholder meeting for registered stakeholders.
July 2018Study is concluded. The task report on scoping is published.
16 September 2018Deadline to send position papers in relation to the report on scoping
11 July 2019Kick off meeting of the full preparatory study. The study will run until the end of 2020.
3 March 2020First stakeholder meeting
November 2020Draft final report
15 December 2020Final stakeholder meeting, 09:45 - 16:00 (agenda to be circulated in due time); registration link

Study team

The study team consists of the following partners:

VITO, The Flemish Institute for Technological research (Belgium), is a renowned European research centre in the field of Energy, Environment and sustainable materials management that has already developed Ecodesign Directive Preparatory studies as input to the development of implementing measures for several product groups for the European Commission and advises regional and federal Belgian authorities on green public procurement policy and criteria development and life cycle analysis.

Waide Strategic Efficiency Ltd (WSE), is an Irish based technical and policy consultancy that has staff with 25 years of experience in all aspects of international product policy development both within the EU and all the world’s major economies. Since its foundation in 2012 it has conducted some 24 studies concerned with product policy and implementation.

RICARDO, a global strategic engineering and environmental consultancy that specialises in the transport, energy and scarce resources sectors.

Documents

  • You can find all documents related to the study in this folder and its subfolders. The final report is now available in the subfolder “Reports”

Related links