On 8 October 2024, in Brussels, the European Commission together with the consortium of the SRI2MARKET project co-organised a gathering to discuss the current situation on the smartness of buildings and the new Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI). This was the second edition of this annual event. The event aimed to set up a way for improving the SRI in Europe considering different experiences and professionals. We were there to give our contribution to the discussion.
Stefan Moser and Bunthan Iea from DG ENER introduced the event by featuring the latest policy developments regarding SRI in the 2024 recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Among the next actions, the European Commission is going to submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the testing and implementation of SRI by 30 June 2026. The report will be based on available results from the SRI currently being officially tested in 14 Member States as well as from the activities performed thanks to the HORIZON and LIFE projects.
"During this event, we had the opportunity to understand the policy developments and market expectations around SRI. While the testing of SRI is on track and promises interesting perspectives for its implementation as a regulatory instrument, some challenges remain. One of these challenges regards the integration of the SRI into broader energy performance assessment and certification schemes. With our SmarterEPC project, we intend to provide crucial insights to make this happen!”
The discussions held during the event will also contribute to the preparation of the mentioned report to send to the Parliament report. Among the key takeaway messages, there were:
- The test phases of SRI carried out in Poland and Flanders were presented, as well as the work carried out by LIFE projects to further test the SRI methodology. These tests showed that the development of SRI training materials, the establishment of national SRI communities, and standardization activities for performing on-site SRI building audits are key assets for the promotion of the SRI across Europe;
- The discussion raised the difficulties for the industry, the market and research fields on how to communicate SRI value to stakeholders since the indicator is quite new and expected to be adopted in 2 years.
- Stakeholders struggle to see homogeneity between existing technical standards for buildings and the SRI assessment framework. Connected to this, since each EU Member State will adopt the SRI according to national legislations and customs, comparability of the SRI system across buildings and countries will be key to consider in the coming years.
- Forward-looking topics were mentioned, such as the introduction of performance metrics to measure the building’s ability to perform the 3 key SRI functionalities. These functionalities are: 1. optimize energy efficiency and overall in-use performance; 2. adapt a building’s operation to the needs of the occupant; 3. adapt a building to signals from the electricity grid. The possible evolution from static SRI calculation to dynamic calculation, thanks to digital twins of buildings, was also flagged as it is high on the stakeholders’ agenda.
SmarterEPC was one of the LIFE and HORIZON-funded projects exhibiting at the event, alongside tunES, iEPB, SmartSquare, SRI-Enact, easySRI, EVELIXIA, SmartEEStory, SmartLivingEPC, REPowerE(d)U, and BuildON. Our project was represented by a team consisting of Sophie Dourlens-Quaranta, Cécile Barrère, Igor Perevozchikov, Thomas Messervey and Alessandro Lodigiani from R2M Solution, Andrei Vladimir Lițiu from EPB Center, and Paris Fokaides from Euphyia Tech. Sylvain Robert, our CINEA project advisor of SmarterEPC and other LIFE projects, was also present.
For those who missed the event, the recording and presentations of the 2nd SRI Joint Event are now available online!
