Drawing in findings from DECODIT and other Horizon supported projects, Paris Fokaides, Professor in the Sustainable Energy Research Group at Frederick University and leader of the project’s renovation support toolbox design and development task, makes the case for expansion of the EU’s Smart Readiness Indicator service catalogue.
The Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) is a European framework that was introduced in the 2018 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive as a common method for assessing the capacity of buildings to optimise technical operation, respond to occupant needs and interact as a flexibility resource with the grid.
Its current catalogue covers nine domains: heating, cooling, domestic hot water, ventilation, lighting, dynamic envelope, electricity, electric vehicle charging, and monitoring and control.
However, Fokaides in a Perspective in the journal Energies, argues that this boundary is too narrow for the more complex energy and water consumption uses and user experiences of larger commercial and industrial buildings such as hotels, hospitals, shopping centres, airports, etc.
Fokaides, highlighting that the weakness is not with the SRI concept itself but a limitation of the current service boundary, proposes five additional service families for an SRI 2.0: mobility and accessibility; safety and security; water and outdoor environmental services; outdoor and site infrastructure; and special energy-intensive and facility services.
He further stresses that these should not be a simple enlargement and the objective should be to develop an SRI 2.0 architecture that preserves the simplicity and comparability of the existing framework, while allowing complex buildings to be assessed more realistically.
“The overall aim should be to move from a framework that assesses smart readiness mainly in regulated energy systems towards one that also recognises the wider service ecosystem of real buildings,” Fokaides writes.
“This does not mean that every building should be assessed against every possible service. It means that the SRI should become capable of activating the right service modules for the right building types. In this way, the SRI can remain comparable and practical, while becoming more credible for complex buildings.”
The SRI is an optional scheme for EU member states. However, following analysis of the testing and implementation of the SRI to date, the European Commission intends, by 30 June 2027, to adopt a delegated act on the application of the SRI to large non-residential buildings with an HVAC rating >290 kW, at which time an SRI 2.0 architecture could come into use.
Other project on which the analysis is based are D2EPC, SmartLivingEPC, Smart Square, easySRI and openBEP4EU.