Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) – “How to” – Knowledge and tools for SRI

Background

The significant share of total energy consumption and the resulting_{CO2 emissions} represent a major challenge for the transformation of the building sector. At the same time, modern intelligent technologies and the energy inertia of a building in the context of the naturally fluctuating availability of renewable energies offer considerable potential for reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

BOKU Türkenwirt (TÜWI) building; Christoph Gruber | BOKU Media Office

The European Commission’s Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), which was introduced with the EPBD 2018, is intended to assess a building’s ability to exploit this potential. You can find out more about the introduction of the SRI in the previous article “Background and current developments“.

As a political and legal instrument and part of the EPBD 2024, the SRI will not become mandatory for certain buildings until 2027 at the earliest, if at all. The introduction of a new indicator is already creating a high demand for information, learning and training opportunities for various stakeholders and several challenges. This applies in particular to potential auditors who will assess the SRI in the future and are dependent on detailed background knowledge. However, other stakeholders involved in the administration who are directly or indirectly involved in SRI also require extensive training. In the case of building owners and for current and future benefits, it is important to increase awareness of the SRI and to communicate how the SRI can be read and translated into measurable benefits for stakeholders.

Even though the SRI and the methodology for its calculation have not yet been finalized, the following article provides a brief overview of the tools and learning opportunities currently available from various EU-funded projects.

Projects, tools and platforms

Several projects such as “easiSRI“, “SRI-Enact“, “SRI2MARKET” and “smart²” have developed a wide range of different training courses and tools, all of which are based on the optional EU methodology published in 2020. One of the aims of the “SRI-Enact” project is to train a total of 120 auditors for SRI assessments in eight EU countries and to assess 1,200 buildings. The e-learning platform developed as part of the “SRI2MARKET” project offers a comprehensive training course available in seven languages. This provides background knowledge on the development of the SRI, an understanding of the EU calculation methodology, training on how to carry out SRI assessments independently and an introduction to the SRI2MARKET assessment tool.

SRI2MARKET Benchmarking Feature

The course includes the peer review of assessments prepared for the exercise by experts from the project team and provides access to the SRI assessment platform. The assessment platform supports the market introduction of the SRI by providing a tool for conducting SRI assessments and access to benchmark data on assessments already conducted in some Member States. Own assessments can be duplicated and independently adapted to explore upgrades. In addition, the “quick exploration” feature provides a way for non-experts to quickly get an estimate of their own SRI value and a range of upgrade packages for their own building based on type, age, climate zone and condition of the building. The “easiSRI” project is developing its own web-based platform for automatically carrying out SRI assessments. This also offers further advantages for users by incorporating the effects of SRI on energy efficiency and financial or economic parameters. An AI assistant called “SRI Express” supports users on the platform in carrying out assessments. Another open cloud-based platform for assessments is being developed by “smart²“, which will be supplemented by the exploration of a model procedure for SRI assessments, among other things.

Experience from the training courses, especially from SRI2MARKET, shows that the interest and perception of the training courses depends heavily on the background of the participants. By far the greatest interest is shown by potential future auditors and corporate providers of smart building technology. In general, however, a wait-and-see attitude can be observed among other stakeholders, which is justified by the ongoing process of developing the methodology – this will be either confirmed or revised in new legislation by the European Commission in 2027 – and the integration of SRI into the energy performance certificate, for example.

The exact procedure, methodology and possible integration of the SRI into existing energy performance certificates is part of an ongoing process with intensive involvement of various stakeholders. You can read more about the ongoing process and stakeholder involvement in the previous article “Working and shaping with stakeholders“.