How to read the pages

The summary at the top

The three cells — install, use, fuel — are not a summary we wrote: they are the values of the rules you find in full further down, with the article, the paragraph and the date.

Where there is more than one case, the cell shows the most restrictive of those in force and always states how many there are. It never merges two rules that cannot be compared: if one act sets a minimum class above 35 kW and another below, there is no single minimum and the cell does not invent one. It gives the range between the lowest and the highest class — «4★–5★ minimum» — with the words «the acts set different power limits», and the cases in full sit below.

A value never appears without its power limit. «5 stars» without «below 35 kW» is a different sentence from the one the act writes, and the difference falls on whoever buys.

Validity: in force, not yet, no longer

Every rule states whether it is in force today, whether it is not yet in force — already written into the act with a future date, which matters because an appliance bought now stays in the house for years — or whether it is no longer in force. Rules no longer in force sit at the bottom and stay readable: they show what applied when the appliance was installed.

The status is computed in your browser, on the date you are reading. A static site built in September and read in January would state something false.

In force does not mean active

A rule that applies only in part of the year is in force all year and applies within its period: outside that period it is not superseded, it is out of season. They are two different things, and the page keeps them on two lines.

What the page does not state

A rule without its reference — without article and paragraph — does not enter this page. When we have no figure for an item, the page says so and says where to look: it does not render it as a zero, nor as «no restriction». A declared empty field is worth more than a full and false one.

And when none of the rules we have extracted applies to a municipality, the page does not say «anything may be installed here»: it says which rule was excluded, for which classification, citing its reference — and it stays limited to the acts we have read.

The country page

A country page gives no verdict: at that scale no act supports one. It has five chapters, always the same and always in this order — what applies across the country, where it is decided, which incentive there is, then climate and energy prices and the sources —; the first three carry the titles of the three cells at the top. Two countries compare chapter by chapter.

The rules that apply at a precise address are on the municipality page, where that page exists.

Different depths

Not every country is read to the same level. In Italy the rules are read by Region and resolved municipality by municipality; elsewhere the national acts are read and, below them, only some units — a Land, a département — or none.

The map on the home page shows it unit by unit, with different shapes for units with rules read, units with the national level only and units not read. On the country page the chapter where it is decided counts the units read: the count is EMBER's, and its provenance says so. The units not read stay listed, with where to find their acts.

Re-verification

Some pages declare a date by which they must be verified again: those whose acts change by decree without a signal that monitoring can read. The page carries the date of the last verification and the date by which the next one falls.

Once that date has passed, the check that runs with every publication stops until the sources have been read again: a page does not stay published as up to date beyond the deadline it declares.

The sources at the foot of every page

The sources block lists only the sources that page cites, each with the file address, the sha256 fingerprint, the acquisition date and the terms of reuse. Every reference on the page leads to its entry, and a check on the built site verifies that every cited source has its entry and every entry is cited.

The full list is on the sources page.

The comparison between countries

Markets puts the covered countries side by side. It answers whoever has to decide where to invest: the status of the incentive schemes, the dates already written into the acts, the climate and energy prices.

One barrier applies: only what shares standard, universe and unit is put side by side. That leaves out almost everything — emission limits, incentive amounts, household consumption — and the page says so with its form before it says it in words: what does not line up has no columns.