{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/draft-electricity-and-gas-energy-company-obligation-order-2012/article-2",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/draft-electricity-and-gas-energy-company-obligation-order-2012/article-2.json",
  "legislation": "ukdsi/2012/9780111525456",
  "legislation_title": "The Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Order 2012",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/draft-electricity-and-gas-energy-company-obligation-order-2012",
  "path": "article/2",
  "kind": "article",
  "number": "2",
  "heading": "Interpretation",
  "text": "In this Order—\n“adjoining installation” has the meaning given in article 14(2);\n“Administrator” means the Gas and Electricity and Markets Authority established by section 1 of the Utilities Act 2000;\n“affordable warmth group” means a group of persons in receipt of the benefits in Schedule 1;\n“area of low income” means an area in Great Britain which is described as an area of low income in the document entitled “Energy Company Obligation, Carbon Saving Community Obligation: Rural and Low Income Areas”, published on 12th June 2012 and the ISBN of which is 9780108511608;\n“carbon qualifying action” has the meaning given in article 12(3);\n“carbon saving” means the lifetime tonnes of carbon dioxide that a qualifying action will save;\n“carbon saving community qualifying action” has the meaning given in article 13(5);\n“cost saving” means, if a qualifying action under this Order is installed, the money that would be saved by that installation over its expected lifetime in heating a home to 21 degrees Celsius in the main living areas and 18 degrees Celsius in all other areas;\n“district heating system” means a system that delivers heat through pipes or conduits to two or more domestic premises;\n“domestic customer” means a person living in domestic premises in Great Britain who is supplied with electricity or gas at those premises wholly or mainly for domestic purposes;\n“domestic energy user” means a person who uses energy in domestic premises in Great Britain wholly or mainly for domestic purposes and includes a person living in a mobile home;\n“dual licence-holder” means a person holding a licence under section 6(1)(d) of the Electricity Act 1989 and a licence under section 7A of the Gas Act 1986;\n“electricity licence-holder” means a person holding a licence under section 6(1)(d) of the Electricity Act 1989 who does not also hold a licence under section 7A of the Gas Act 1986;\n“excess action” has the meaning given by article 21;\n“gas licence-holder” means a person holding a licence under section 7A of the Gas Act 1986 who does not also hold a licence under section 6(1)(d) of the Electricity Act 1989;\n“glazing measure” means the installation of secondary or replacement glazing;\n“Green Deal report” means a report produced by a green deal assessor pursuant to a qualifying assessment in accordance with regulation 7 of the Green Deal Framework (Disclosure, Acknowledgment, Redress etc.) Regulations 2012;\n“group company” means a licence-holder which is a member of a group of companies; and “group” refers to the group of companies of which the licence-holder is a member;\n“group of companies” means a holding company and the wholly-owned subsidiaries of that holding company where “holding company” and “wholly-owned” subsidiary have the same meaning as in section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006;\n“hard to treat cavity” means—\n(a) a cavity wall—\n(i) in a building with 3 or more storeys where each storey has cavity walls;\n(ii) which a chartered surveyor has reported is not suitable to insulate with standard insulation material or techniques; or\n(iii) which a chartered surveyor has reported is not suitable to insulate without substantial remedial works to the building;\n(b) a cavity within a cavity wall which is less than 50mm wide;\n(c) a cavity found in homes of prefabricated concrete construction or with metal frame cavity walls; or\n(d) an uneven cavity formed in walls constructed of natural stone or from natural stone outer leaf and block or brick inner leaf;\n“heating qualifying action” has the meaning given in article 15(3);\n“householder” has the meaning given in Schedule 2;\n“licence-holder” means an electricity licence-holder, a gas licence-holder or a dual licence-holder;\n“lifetime tonnes of carbon dioxide” means the amount in tonnes of carbon dioxide that is expected to be saved over the lifetime of a measure installed under this Order;\n“mobile home” means a home which is—\n(a) a caravan within the meaning of Part I of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 (disregarding the amendment made by section 13(2) of the Caravan Sites Act 1968); and\n(b) used as a dwelling for the purposes of Part I or II of the Local Government Finance Act 1992;\n“notification period” means—\n(a) 1st January 2011 to 31st December 2011 for phase 1;\n(b) 1st January 2012 to 31st December 2012 for phase 2;\n(c) 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2013 for phase 3,\nand references in this Order, in relation to a phase, to the relevant notification period is to the notification period for that phase;\n“overall obligation period” has the meaning given in article 6;\n“phase” means one of the three phases as follows—\n(a) the period commencing on 1st October 2012 and ending on 31st March 2013 (“phase 1”);\n(b) the twelve months ending 31st March 2014 (“phase 2”); and\n(c) the twelve months ending 31st March 2015 (“phase 3”);\n“Publicly Available Specification” means the Publicly Available Specification 2030:2012;\n“qualifying action” means a carbon qualifying action, a carbon saving community qualifying action or a heating qualifying action”;\n“qualifying boiler” means—\n(a) in the case of a boiler to be repaired, a boiler which the Administrator is satisfied—\n(i) is not functioning efficiently or has broken down; and\n(ii) has a seasonal energy efficiency value of not less than 86% when assessed against the Standard Assessment Procedure;\n(b) in the case of a boiler to be replaced, a boiler which the Administrator is satisfied—\n(i) a boiler which is not functioning efficiently; or\n(ii) a boiler which has broken down,\nand which cannot be economically repaired;\n“qualifying supply” means the supply to domestic customers of 400 gigawatt hours of electricity or 2000 gigawatt hours of gas;\n“recommended measure” means a measure—\n(a) recommended in a Green Deal report which has been produced in respect of a domestic energy user’s premises; or\n(b) recommended in a report by a chartered surveyor pursuant to an assessment of the domestic energy user’s premises performed for the purpose of identifying measures for improving the energy efficiency of the premises;\n“Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure” means the Government’s Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure for energy ratings of dwellings (2009 Edition, as amended in April 2012, version 9.91);\n“relevant year” means 2011, 2012 or 2013;\n“solid wall insulation” means—\n(a) internal or external insulation which lowers the U-value of the treated walls to 0.30W/m2K or less; or\n(b) in the case of a mobile home, internal or external insulation applied to the ceiling, floor or walls which lowers the U-value of those parts of the mobile home to which the insulation is applied;\n“a specified adjoining area” means, where an area of low income (“area A”) is—\n(a) in England or Wales, an area (if any) adjoining area A which is specified as a “Lower Layer Super Output Area” by the Office of National Statistics for England and Wales, in a document entitled “Mid-2010 Population Estimates for Lower Layer Super Output Areas in England and Wales by Broad Age and Sex” (release date 28th September 2011); or\n(b) in Scotland, an area (if any) adjoining area A which is specified by the Scottish Executive as a “Datazone” in a document entitled “SMID Datazone Lookup” (version 3 published on 6th March 2012);\n“Standard Assessment Procedure” means the Government’s Standard Assessment Procedure for energy rating of dwellings (2009 Edition, as amended in October 2010);\n“supplier” has the meaning given in article 4;\n“total carbon emissions reduction obligation” means the sum total of carbon emissions reduction obligations which have been determined for a supplier in respect of phases 1, 2 and 3;\n“total carbon saving community obligation” means the sum total of carbon savings community obligations which have been determined for a supplier in respect of phases 1, 2 and 3;\n“total home heating cost reduction obligation” means the sum total of home heating cost reduction obligations which have been determined for a supplier in respect of phases 1, 2 and 3;\n“U-value” means the measure in W/m2K of heat transmission through material.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f1",
      "text": "1986 c.44."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f2",
      "text": "S.I. xxxx/xxxx."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f3",
      "text": "2006 c.46."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f4",
      "text": "1960 c.62."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f5",
      "text": "1968 c.52."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f6",
      "text": "1992 c.14."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f7",
      "text": "The Specification is designed for installing, managing and providing energy efficiency measures in existing buildings. A copy can be obtained from the British Standards Institute. See http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030248249."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f8",
      "text": "The Government’s Reduced Standard Data Assessment Procedure for Energy Rating of Dwellings (2009 Edition) can be found at http://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/SAP/2009/SAP-2009_9-90.pdf. For a summary of the changes made in version 9.91 see, http://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/SAP/2009/RdSAP_amendments_2012.pdf."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f9",
      "text": "The document referred to can be found on the website for the Office of National Statistics: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=lsoa."
    },
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f10",
      "text": "http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/SIMDQuickLookup."
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2012/9780111525456/article/2",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-30T14:51:35.077411+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}