Author:

Federico Garzia (Eurac Research)
In collaboration with the H2020 SmartBuilt4EU project.
 

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (Directive 2018/844/EU) promotes the implementation of building automation and electronic monitoring of technical building systems and has introduced the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI). The SRI is a rating scheme for assessing the capacity of buildings to use information and communication technologies and electronic systems to improve energy efficiency and to interact with the occupants and the grid. Its aim is to make building users, owners, tenants, and smart service providers more aware of the benefits of Smart Building technologies.

In this context, the H2020 SmartBuilt4EU project aims to consolidate and support the Smart Building Innovation Community (SBIC), promoting the potential of Smart Building technologies, and removing the barriers that slow down their adoption and implementation.

One of the project activities focuses on the promotion, experimentation, and roll-out of the SRI in the EU. With this objective, a set of technical solution packages for smart buildings was defined and analysed in terms of the impact on the SRI score and co-benefits. The aim was to provide inspiration and benchmarking, by demonstrating the added value of smart technologies and by promoting a coherent business case.

These technical solution packages are sets of smart services, defined, using as a reference the smart-ready service catalogue, as indicated in the delegated Regulation (2, 3), and provided by the SRI technical study (4). 

First, a reference configuration for a residential and an office smart building was defined, selecting those services and functionalities which are currently part of smart building design. In Table 1 and Table 2 services and functionalities are reported, grouped according to the type of building systems they relate to (1. Heating, DHW and cooling; 2. Ventilation and dynamic envelope; 3. Flexible operation and smart grid readiness; 4. Reporting information).

Table 1. Reference smart building configuration – Residential.

Table 2. Reference smart building configuration – Office.

Secondly, starting from these standard configurations, enhanced smart functionalities were selected in order to define four different technology solution packages, each one with a specific focus:

1. Energy efficiency: the selected functionalities aim at maximising energy efficiency by reducing energy waste or improving other sources of energy consumption.
2. Comfort, health, and well-being: solution package focused on thermal and visual comfort and indoor environmental quality (IEQ), to improve the physical and emotional health of building users by better controlling ventilation and shading systems.
3. Smart grid readiness: package focused on providing energy flexibility to the building. Energy flexibility is the ability of a building to manage its energy demand and generation according to local climate conditions, user needs, and grid requirements.
4. Informed users: finally, this package contains those functionalities which provide information, such as operational data, benchmarking, fault and failures detection to the building users, both occupants and facility managers.

Table 3. Technical solution packages for residential buildings.

Table 4. Technical solution packages for office buildings.

The output of the definition and analyses of the smart building solution packages is a set of Smart Building Technical Sheets which summarise the solution packages, providing information about their impact on the SRI score and their co-benefit performances. In Figure 1, Technical Sheet 2 is presented as an example. The whole set of Technical Sheets are available on the project website (https://smartbuilt4eu.eu/). These Technical Sheets have been used as training materials in dedicated national workshops to support the implementation of SRI by explaining the implications of smart technology adoption.

Figure 1. Technical Sheet #2 – Comfort, health, and well-being for office buildings.

SRI test phase in EU countries

The European Commission DG Energy has officially kicked off its technical assistance service to the European Commission services and to Member States for testing and implementing the SRI under the EPBD. The SRI is currently being officially tested in 6 EU countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, and Croatia.

• Austria: The Austrian test phase is led by the Austrian Institute of Construction Engineering (OIB) and the Austrian Climate Ministry (BMK), with the involvement of AEE Intec and of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU) who are conducting the assessments. The focus of the test phase is to benchmark the SRI methodology against other methods developed in Austria with a focus on energy flexibility.
• Czech Republic: The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MPO) is leading the Czech test phase, with support from the Department of Environmental and Building Services Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU). During the test phase the common SRI methodology is applied, and depending on the sensitivity of the results, some adaptations may be undertaken in a later phase.
• Denmark: The Danish test phase is led by the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) in cooperation with the Danish Technological Institute (DTI). The purpose is to investigate potentials and opportunities for the SRI in a Danish context. Assessors from DTI will conduct the SRI assessment for 25-30 buildings, including offices, dwellings, multi-family homes, educational institutions – old and new, and with different energy supplies.
• France: The French test phase is led by the Ministry for Ecological Transition with the support of CEREMA. SRI assessments are going to be conducted by independent third parties: EPC assessors are going to be recruited and trained for that purpose by CEREMA, who will in turn deliver formal SRI certificates. The target is to assess at least 30 buildings as a first step.
• Finland: The Ministry of the Environment with the support of MOTIVA, a company dedicated to promoting and supporting sustainable development, started the SRI test phase in Finland, which should last around two years. External assessors are going to be trained to conduct SRI assessments for a target of 150 buildings of different types.
• Croatia: The Ministry of Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets, supported by the non-profit scientific institution Energy Institute Hrvoje Pozar (EIHP) are leading the test phase in Croatia. The test phase aims at exploring the potentials and opportunities for SRI in the Croatian context.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EC or CINEA.

1. H2020 SmartBuilt4EU – The EU Smart Building Innovation Platform.
2. COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2020/2155 of 14 October 2020.
3. The delegated Regulation indicated that the catalogues will we ultimately defined by Member States.
4. Final report on the technical support to the development of a smart readiness indicator for buildings.
5. Source: service contract team comprised of VITO (Belgium), Waide Strategic Efficiency Europe (Ireland), Research to Market (R2M) Solution (France) and LIST, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology.