Guidelines for retrofitting green building features to be implemented

The Singapore Green Building Council and the Building and Construction Authority will develop a standard energy performance contract template for building owners and firms.
Channel NewsAsia 9 Dec 15;

SINGAPORE: To help owners overcome initial financial barriers in retrofitting their buildings with energy-efficient features, the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) and the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) will develop a set of contractual guidelines for such projects.

The standard energy performance contract (EPC) template will clearly state key conditions of the agreement between the building owner and the contractor retrofitting the building, said BCA and SGBC in a joint news release on Wednesday (Dec 9). This is so that “building owners can better focus on the critical component in any EPC: The amount of energy savings guaranteed”, said the agencies.

In the EPC template, the firm must guarantee specific energy savings for the building over a set period, either in monetary terms or as a saving percentage. The firm can either provide financing for the necessary retrofitting works, or the building owner can finance the retrofit. For the first option, the building owner need not incur financial expenditure to start saving energy, said the authorities.

The EPC template complements the Building Retrofit Energy Efficiency Financing (BREEF) scheme by BCA, which offers financing to building owners, Management Corporation Strata Titles (MCSTs), Special Purpose Vehicles and EPC firms for energy efficiency retrofits, said BCA and SGBC.

The standard template will be available for purchase from SGBC in early 2016. EPC firms certified under SGBC’s Singapore Green Building Services labelling scheme will also use the contract in their projects.

- CNA/xq