Wood Stove Removal (DK)
Challenge
The average air pollution from wood stoves contributes as much as traffic in big cities and constitutes 2/3 of the Danish contribution to air pollution causing more than 400 premature deaths a year. Based on this dramatic background, removal of these wood stoves has been singled out as a key area to comply with European regulation on reduction in air pollution (EU NEC Directive on particulate pollution), which Denmark is bound to, and which builds the foundation of the regulation that the Danish parliament has decided to implement. It has been decided that when buying a property, citizens must indicate that they have removed the old stove or prove that the stove is new.
KEYWORDS
Thematic
Air pollution, residential emissions
Legal
EU NEC-directive
Tech
Automated case handling
The regulation came into effect on 1st August 2021 and bans old wood stoves and makes their removal mandatory when real estate registered with a woodstove is traded. The law gives the new homeowner a period of time to get the stove removed before fines are issued.
The implementation challenge of the Danish EPA was that they needed to handle 40.000 cases a year. The aim was also to add a lot of automation, e.g. to be able to send out fines to the homeowners at a certain frequency. In more detail, there was a need for editable lists covering both the case flow and self-service. The automatic closure of cases happened a bit too quickly, and buyers were excluded from the Danish Digital Mail (Digital Post). In terms of registration integration, the goal was to be able to receive all information submitted by the National Real Estate Register in the new solution. Previously, there was insufficient documentation by the National Real Estate Register and communication was taking place through various channels (EPA, National Real Estate Register,…).
The conclusion was that a more detailed logging was needed. Beyond that, there used to be very few cases with incomplete information/error cases (missing address, CPR number, property number) and the submission of cases was done manually.
Solution
The very advanced F2 solution was developed in two stages and during a period of 5 months in total. Real Estate transfers with wood stoves on the property are counted in the thousands. The Danish EPA wanted a system that automated as much as possible of the case handling. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided that, with a few exceptions, the process will be fully automated. The system creates a case automatically when triggered by the National Real Estate Register. If the wood stove is too old a letter is automatically sent to the property owner giving them notice of the grace period where they can remove or replace the stove. If it’s unclear how old the stove is, the property owner is prompted to have the stove’s age assessed and provide documentation (or remove it).
The system automatically reminds the homeowner until documentation is received for the removal (or the age). Actual casework is only done by staff to check validity of provided documentation for an undocumented stove being too new to be banned. In the second phase, the platform was enhanced to automatically submit fines to homeowners that had failed to remove or document the age of their stove. Again, staff was only involved to assess provided documentation. Finally, the case is submitted to police and the tax authority if the homeowner continuously fails to remove the woodstove, provide documentation or pay fines. The below overview outlines the solution elements.
Results
Altogether, this new digital solution for managing and automating wood stove removals has made the annual handling of more than 40.000 cases efficient, compliant and very user friendly.
F2 Climate Software Solutions
