PEPA Conference 2024 – Online

Q & A responses from the virtual conference

Taking place on 24^th April, the fourth Online PEPA Conference was another success. Welcoming around 250 attendees throughout the day and speakers from government and industry, the delegates benefitted from up to the minute information on upcoming methodologies and policy direction relating to the energy performance and retrofitting of buildings.

We started the day with an opening address by Andrew Parkin, chair of PEPA followed shortly by a key note speech from Rt Hon Caroline Flint, Chair of the Committee on Fuel Poverty, who gave an impassioned speech around why our mission matters and why we cannot forget about fuel poverty in the pursuit of Net Zero.

We then heard from Henry Turner-Chambers, Home Energy Model Technical Lead (DEZNZ) and Keeran Jugdoyal (DLUHC) who gave up to the minute information about RdSAP 10, the Home Energy Model (HEM) and the upcoming EPC Reform Consultation.

Conference regular, Andrej Miller (Head of ECO at DESNZ) then talked around a range of subjects including the current thinking around government funding schemes and as always answered questions on other DESNZ policy areas such as MEES.

This was followed by the ever excellent Prof Richard Fitton of Salford University who spoke about his fascinating Energy House 2.0 facility and called out to the delegates for their contributions to the soon to be released consultation on the Retrofit Assessor standard (BS 40104).

After lunch saw a new concept for an online conference; a round table forum of Commercial Energy Assessment, chaired by Andrew Parkin and containing members of the schemes and experienced Energy Assessor; Jonny Murton and Martin Gibbons and we also had the pleasure of Emma Floyd, Co-Director Industrial Decarbonisation & Emissions Trading joining us. This saw some excellent debate on EPC reform, MEES v2 for commercial PRS and how to tackle compliance via better enforcement. There was a strong call to action for energy assessors to speak to their local MPs and those running for office in what will certainly prove to be an election year.

The conference closed following the regular ‘Schemes Q&A’ session, where delegates could ask questions of the schemes on any topic of their choosing.

Definitely an informative hour of discussion and debate, chaired by Catherine Garrido.

Throughout the day, online polls were run for each section; asking a range of questions and the results were reviewed in the Chairman’s summary.

Presentations, recordings and CPD certificates will be released to delegates in the next few weeks and a date has been set for the face to face Conference in Derby – the 24^th September 2024. This is earlier than usual; an attempt to avoid the upcoming election.