The Energy Efficiency Directive is an ambitious plan that aims to make the EU energy-efficient by reducing energy consumption by 9% by 2030. These directives promise to bring several changes to energy operations and compliance management, which is quite troubling because most organisations have relatively archaic methods for managing compliance, which makes the process more inefficient and time-consuming. It would be quite difficult to account for regulatory amendments in the future.
However, with the right solution, organisations can modernise their compliance management process to help reduce the cost of compliance while also adjusting their internal operations to meet the expansive requirements of the Energy Efficiency Directive.
Using energy compliance solutions to meet regulatory requirements
Energy compliance solutions refer to automated compliance platforms that allow organisations to simplify energy regulation. Conventional solutions, such as spreadsheet software, lack the processing power to handle regulatory content, driving up regulatory costs and making the process inefficient. Compliance solutions address these issues using automated technology such as NLP, advanced analytics, and AI.
By leveraging technology such as topic modelling, text analytics, and sentiment analysis, regulatory platforms can streamline several processes related to energy compliance management. Automated technology can streamline critical procedures to reduce your regulatory teams’ workload, find and relay regulatory updates, map external regulatory updates to internal operations, and conduct an internal assessment, which is critical for streamlining compliance operations.
When used correctly, these compliance platforms can help organisations meet the stringent regulatory requirements set out by the Energy Efficiency Directive.
Meeting the energy efficiency directive requirements
Changes to current systems
The Energy Efficiency Directive aims to minimise energy poverty by adjusting internal operations. For example, the revenue generated from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), which has been extended to buildings and transport, will be directed to the newly established Social Climate Fund to provide support to those feeling the effects of energy poverty. While Article 8 of the energy savings obligation states that member states must achieve a share of energy savings for vulnerable people.
These are examples of changes to the current system and they require organisations to adjust internal operations to meet them. This is where automated energy compliance platforms can help. Organisations can execute critical functions such as compliance mapping, where they can determine how to adjust internal operations to meet the requirements set out in Article 8.
Regulatory compliance software can make rapid connections between external rules and internal policies, allowing regulators to assign actions to relevant personnel, cutting the time and cost usually allocated to adjusting to internal operations.
Making significant changes to company functions and policies
As part of the 2018 amending directive, member nations have to cut down on energy consumption to a range between 1128 million tonnes and 846 million tonnes. The amending directive includes an extension to energy savings obligations to improve savings by 0.8% each year.
Achieving these obligations requires organisations to establish 10-year national energy and climate plan outlining how they can meet these targets by 2030. The construction of this plan will affect organisations because they must amend operations, such as energy consumption and reporting.
We can expect organisations to feel the brunt of these massive changes in the form of expansive regulatory updates. Organisations have to capture these updates and incorporate them into their internal operations, which takes time and resources.
Fortunately, automated energy compliance solutions can help organisations optimise compliance by scanning regulatory updates and relaying them directly to the inbox. This would help organisations meet their regulatory obligations while streamlining compliance procedures.
Creating detailed reports
As per Article 24 of the directive, organisations must report on energy efficiency investments, including energy performance contracts. In addition, to extensive reporting requirements, regulatory bodies will have to meet clearer and stricter requirements to ensure the necessary technical competence of energy service providers, energy managers, and auditors through regular internal assessment.
Furthermore, EU countries need to set up and project development assistance mechanisms at national, regional, and local levels to promote energy efficiency investments and ensure they reach higher energy efficiency targets.
Meeting these brand new obligations means organisations need to have the right internal solutions in place to meet these internal requirements. This forces organisations to allocate more resources to compliance management, driving up costs and taking more time.
Automated compliance solutions can help mitigate some of the costs and time taken for regulatory management with an internal assessment tool that allows organisations to measure their own regulatory operations and ensure they are in line with the latest energy compliance requirements. Moreover, it can also help streamline report creation because the solution can collect data from different sources to create detailed reports within a shorter period and turn the process into a more efficient one.
The automated platform can help energy organisations streamline their monitoring and reporting procedures, which is critical for cutting compliance costs while meeting regulatory requirements.
Meeting stringent energy requirements of the future
With organisations expected to make significant changes to their energy compliance management process, it is essential to find ways to streamline and simplify their processes to cut regulation costs and improve efficiency.
Automated energy compliance solutions can help organisations meet extensive requirements set out in the Energy Efficiency Directive. This way, organisations can make the necessary changes to their internal operations to meet regulatory requirements without seeing a massive increase in regulatory spending and time allocated to this complicated procedure. The future of regulation will be defined by automation technology to help streamline and simplify compliance management processes.