Building energy audit

Thanks to technological progress and changes to regulations, buildings are constructed to be increasingly energy efficient. Nonetheless, in Monaco as elsewhere, the majority of buildings have been standing for a number of years and will remain in place for several decades more, so there is a need to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the tools which will make this improvement possible is the building energy audit, which has been brought to the fore as part of the new Monegasque energy regulations published in 2018 (Ministerial Decree No. 2018-613, dated 26 June 2018 ), amended by Ministerial Decree No. 870-2020, dated 15 December 2020, JO 8517 – Amendments to Ministerial Decree No. 2018‑613 + ‘notice and announcement’ audit grants.

An energy audit is a detailed analysis, including figures, of a building’s energy performance, and can be carried out for houses, residential apartment buildings or companies.

Energy audits enable proposals for energy-saving work to be drawn up, with an indication of cost and return on investment. Audits must be conducted according to a very precise method to give the best possible assessment of the building’s energy consumption and sources of energy loss.

The specifications setting out the content of the audit and the methods to be employed were published in the Journal de Monaco in June 2018 (amended in December 2020).

The specifications include a requirement for the supplier to present the results of the audit to the general meeting of co-owners.
The audit must be conducted by a company holding the OPQIBI 1905 qualification or equivalent. A list of companies is available below:

This list is not exhaustive and is provided for information. Any company possessing the necessary qualifications which would like to appear on this list should email subvention-audit@gouv.mc.

To help them identify the most appropriate service and prices for each building, building managers and owners will find below a list of documents that will be useful in preparing for the audit and a standard request for a quote:

The company will provide the person who commissioned the building audit with a report and/or a summary of the audit in accordance with the specifications.

Please note: following the amendments made to the relevant Ministerial Decree in December 2020, a copy of the summary can be attached to a sales contract or lease agreement in place of the full audit.

The audit is valid for 10 years and it (or a summary thereof) must be attached to any contract for sale or lease of the building from 1 January 2022 for buildings completed between 1930 and 1990, from 2025 for buildings completed between 1991 and 2013, and from 2028 for buildings completed before 1930.

A standard questionnaire for occupants is available for use by companies carrying out audits:

... as are calculation assumptions:

To encourage owners to act in advance of their legal obligation to conduct building energy audits, the Government has introduced a subsidy.

The Ministerial Decree, accompanied by a ‘notice and announcement’, was updated on Friday 18 December 2020.

The amendments to the notice and announcement focused primarily on the following issues:

• The use of certain terms (‘completion’ becomes ‘as-built certification’, ‘surface area’ becomes ‘corrected floor area’, etc.)
• The option of sending a copy of the summary in place of the full audit when a property is leased or sold
• Removal of the annual updating of caps
• The cap on the subsidy for buildings constructed between 1930 and 1990 (initially, the cap for 2021 for buildings in this age group was 50%, it has been increased to 75%)