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Definitions For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions apply:

(1) ‘building’ means a roofed construction having walls, for which energy is used to condition the indoor environment;

(2) ‘zero-emission building’ means a building with a very high energy performance, as determined in accordance with Annex I, requiring zero or a very low amount of energy, producing zero on-site carbon emissions from fossil fuels and producing zero or a very low amount of operational greenhouse gas emissions, in accordance with Article 11;

(3) ‘nearly zero-energy building’ means a building with a very high energy performance, as determined in accordance with Annex I, which is no worse than the 2023 cost-optimal level reported by Member States pursuant to Article 6(2) and where the nearly zero or very low amount of energy required is covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources, including energy from renewable sources produced on-site or energy from renewable sources produced nearby;

(4) ‘minimum energy performance standards’ means rules that require existing buildings to meet an energy performance requirement as part of a wide renovation plan for a building stock or at a trigger point on the market such as sale, rent, donation or change of purpose within the cadastre or land registry, in a period of time or by a specific date, thereby triggering the renovation of existing buildings;

(5) ‘public bodies’ means public bodies as defined in Article 2, point (12), of Directive (EU) 2023/1791;

(6) ‘technical building system’ means technical equipment of a building or building unit for space heating, space cooling, ventilation, domestic hot water, built-in lighting, building automation and control, on-site renewable energy generation and energy storage, or a combination thereof, including those systems using energy from renewable sources;

(7) ‘building automation and control system’ means a system comprising all products, software and engineering services that can support energy-efficient, economical and safe operation of technical building systems through automatic controls and by facilitating the manual management of those technical building systems;

(8) ‘energy performance of a building’ means the calculated or metered amount of energy needed to meet the energy demand associated with a typical use of the building, which includes energy used for heating, cooling, ventilation, domestic hot water and lighting;

(9) ‘primary energy’ means energy from renewable and non-renewable sources which has not undergone any conversion or transformation process;

(10) ‘metered’ means measured by a relevant device, such as an energy meter, a power meter, a power metering and monitoring device, or an electricity meter;

(11) ‘non-renewable primary energy factor’ means an indicator that is calculated by dividing the primary energy from non-renewable sources for a given energy carrier, including the delivered energy and the calculated energy overheads of delivery to the points of use, by the delivered energy;

(12) ‘renewable primary energy factor’ means an indicator that is calculated by dividing the primary energy from renewable sources from an on-site, nearby or distant energy source that is delivered via a given energy carrier, including the delivered energy and the calculated energy overheads of delivery to the points of use, by the delivered energy;

(13) ‘total primary energy factor’ means the sum of renewable and non-renewable primary energy factors for a given energy carrier;

(14) ‘energy from renewable sources’ means energy from renewable non-fossil sources, namely wind, solar (solar thermal and solar photovoltaic) and geothermal energy, osmotic energy, ambient energy, tide, wave and other ocean energy, hydropower, biomass, landfill gas, sewage treatment plant gas, and biogas;

(15) ‘building envelope’ means the integrated elements of a building which separate its interior from the outdoor environment;

(16) ‘building unit’ means a section, floor or apartment within a building which is designed or altered to be used separately;

(17) ‘building element’ means a technical building system or an element of the building envelope;

(18) ‘residential building or building unit’ means a room or suite of rooms in a permanent building or a structurally separated part of a building which is designed for all-year habitation by one private household;

(19) ‘renovation passport’ means a tailored roadmap for the deep renovation of a specific building in a maximum number of steps that will significantly improve its energy performance;

(20) ‘deep renovation’ means a renovation which is in line with the ‘energy efficiency first’ principle, which focuses on essential building elements and which transforms a building or building unit:

(a) before 1 January 2030, into a nearly zero-energy building;

(b) from 1 January 2030, into a zero-emission building;

(21) ‘staged deep renovation’ means a deep renovation carried out in a maximum number of steps, asset out in a renovation passport;

(22) ‘major renovation’ means the renovation of a building where:

(a) the total cost of the renovation relating to the building envelope or the technical building systems is higher than 25 % of the value of the building, excluding the value of the land upon which the building is situated; or (b) more than 25 % of the surface of the building envelope undergoes renovation. Member States may choose to apply point (a) or (b);

(23) ‘operational greenhouse gas emissions’ means greenhouse gas emissions associated with the energy consumption of the technical building systems during the use and operation of the building;

(24) ‘whole-life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions’ means greenhouse gas emissions that occur over the whole life cycle of a building, including the production and transport of construction products, construction-site activities, the use of energy in the building and replacement of construction products, as well as demolition, transport and management of waste materials and their reuse, recycling and final disposal;

(25) ‘life-cycle global warming potential’ or ‘life-cycle GWP’ means an indicator which quantifies the global warming potential contributions of a building along its full life cycle;

(26) ‘split incentives’ means split incentives as defined in Article 2, point (54), of Directive (EU) 2023/1791;

(27) ‘energy poverty’ means energy poverty as defined in Article 2, point (52), of Directive (EU) 2023/1791;

(28) ‘vulnerable households’ means households in energy poverty or households, including lower middle-income households, that are particularly exposed to high energy costs and that lack the means to renovate the building that they occupy;

(29) ‘European standard’ means a standard adopted by the European Committee for Standardization, the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization or the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and made available for public use;

(30) ‘energy performance certificate’ means a certificate, recognised by a Member State or by a legal person designated by it, which indicates the energy performance of a building or building unit, calculated in accordance with a methodology adopted pursuant to Article 4;

(31) ‘cogeneration’ means the simultaneous generation in one process of thermal energy and electrical or mechanical energy;

(32) ‘cost-optimal level’ means the energy performance level which leads to the lowest cost during the estimated economic life cycle, where:

(a) the lowest cost is determined taking into account:

(i) the category and use of the building concerned;

(ii) energy-related investment costs on the basis of official forecasts;

(iii) maintenance and operating costs, including energy costs taking into account the cost of greenhouse gas allowances;

(iv) environmental and health externalities of energy use;

(v) earnings from energy produced on-site, where applicable;

(vi) waste management costs, where applicable; and (b) the estimated economic life cycle is determined by each Member State and refers to the remaining estimated economic life cycle of a building where energy performance requirements are set for the building as a whole, or to the estimated economic life cycle of a building element where energy performance requirements are set for building elements. The cost-optimal level shall lie within the range of performance levels where the cost-benefit analysis calculated over the estimated economic life cycle is positive;

(33) ‘recharging point’ means a recharging point as defined in Article 2, point (48), of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 of the European Parliament and of the Council ;

(34) ‘pre-cabling’ means all measures that are necessary to enable the installation of recharging points, including data transmission, cables, cable routes and, where necessary, electricity meters;

(35) ‘roofed car park’ means a roofed construction, with at least three car parking spaces, that does not use energy to condition the indoor environment;

(36) ‘micro-isolated system’ means any system with consumption less than 500 GWh in the year 2022, where there is no connection with other systems;

(37) ‘smart recharging’ means smart recharging as defined in Article 2, second paragraph, point (14m), of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council ;

(38) ‘bi-directional recharging’ means bi-directional recharging as defined in Article 2, point (11), of Regulation (EU) 2023/1804;