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SRI-ENACT: Tools and Services for Smart Building Readiness

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By Project MonitorEE

SRI-ENACT is a project focused on developing tools and services to assess the readiness of buildings to adapt to smart technologies. Its primary goal is to engage stakeholders at both the national and EU levels to co-create tools and services that support the uptake of the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI). The project will develop tools and services that calculate the SRI and provide recommendations and guidance for buildings smartness upgrades.

Background

Because of raising awareness of the added value of smart buildings and encouraging investment, SRI defined in a study back in 2017. In 2020, the European Commission formalized the SRI in a Commission implementing act. The SRI provides a standardized methodology for assessing the smart preparedness of buildings and is essential for long-term strategies aimed at smart upgrading in building construction and renovation. It was introduced into the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to enable reliable measures of smart readiness.

However, the realization and acceptance of SRI from EU countries prompts a number of open challenges related to the definition of SRI and its adaptation to different national contexts, the lack of SRI expertise among energy auditors, the need to address issues of scalability and reliability of implementation on a large scale, weak engagement relevant stakeholders in different EU countries and difficulties in making informed decisions for smart energy upgrades.

To address these challenges, SRI-ENACT provides a holistic solution aimed at facilitating the adoption of SRI in Europe. The project involves stakeholders in co-creating nationally tailored SRI implementations, alongside the development of tools to support SRI assessments and decision-making. Currently optional, SRI will become mandatory from 2026 for certain building types.

SRI scored 9 technical areas (heating, cooling, domestic hot water, ventilation, lighting, dynamic building envelope, electricity, charging EV, supervision management), 7 performance criteria (EE, Maintance, Comfort, Practicality, Health, Informing users, Energy flexibility) and 3 key functionalities (Energy properties, energy flexibility, responding to user needs) of each building.

SRI-ENACT project

The LIFE21-CET-SMARTREADY-SRI-ENACT project has received funding from the European Union’s LIFE Programme. This SRI-ENACT project will deliver a training and certification package for potential SRI auditors. The resulting solution will be applied in eight EU countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia, Romania and Spain), including 120 SRI auditors for the SRI assessment of 1,200 buildings.

This training, for Croatia conducted by North-West Croatia Regional Energy and Climate Agency (REGEA), includes on-line education of authorized energy certifiers with the SRI tool, to become SRI assessors, could be good example for other EU countries.