Department of Energy and Climate Change

The Energy Services Directive came into force on 17 May 2006, as a means to enhance end-use energy efficiency across the EU. Member States had until 17 May 2008 to implement the Directive's requirements. DECC has overall responsibility for this (having taken over responsibility from Defra), and is co-ordinating the post-implementation activities for the UK.

The Directive imposes various obligations on member states, including a requirement that:

• specified energy companies promote energy efficiency to their customers (see article 6(2))
• final customers receive energy metering as far as this is technically possible, financially reasonable and proportionate to potential energy savings and other billing requirements (see article 13)
• an indicative 9 percent energy savings target is met by 2016 – with public sector playing an exemplary  role in helping achieve this (see articles 4 and 5 respectively).

Implementation of the Directive in the UK

The UK already had a number of measures in place to promote energy efficiency, and we were in fact meeting many of the requirements of the Directive before the ‘transposition date’. 

• signed voluntary agreements with the relevant parts of the energy supply sector under Article 6 which requires energy suppliers to promote energy services and energy efficiency -  text of agreements for non net bound energy suppliers and one for net bound energy suppliers, and who has signed. The DfT is implementing similar voluntary agreements for the transport fuel sector
• signed voluntary agreements with all parts of the public sector to buy energy efficient products - text of agreements and who has signed
• signed voluntary agreements within all Northern Ireland - text of agreements for non net bound energy suppliers and one for the net bound energy suppliers, and who has signed.
• implemented new requirements to provide comparisons of consumption information on residential gas and electricity bills.