eu.bac letter on the Smart Readiness Indicator

eu.bac, European Building Automation and Controls Association, welcomes the fact that the new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) includes, among several other key elements, a mandate to the European Commission to adopt delegated act establishing an optional common European Union scheme for rating the smart readiness of buildings by defining a smart readiness indicator and the methodology to calculate it.

As recognized in several areas within the new EPBD, Building Automation and Controls (BACS) play a key role in Smart Buildings, making them healthier, more responsive to the needs of the occupants, reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, and integrating renewables.

We are looking forward to the introduction of a Smart Readiness Indicator that can reflect this as well as the other key requirements of the final text of the EPBD.

In this context we recognize the exciting challenge of synchronizing the SRI deliverables with the key drivers in the new EPBD for energy efficiency, healthy indoor environments and demand response. eu.bac agrees that these are essential elements for the buildings of the present and of the future and such an indicator should have the aim to create added value to the owners, tenants and building user: in a simple and tangible way.

Obviously one of the challenges of this work is to avoid developing an SRI that is overly complex as, with this now falling as a voluntary measure under the EPBD, there is a risk this won’t be delivered in practice if the methodology proves to be too complicated.

That said, eu.bac welcomes the approach of developing an indicator covering several domains, with a multicriteria assessment and an overall single score assessment.

It is important to highlight that a precondition for the success of such an indicator is to make sure that the time and cost requirements of the assessment are reasonable, and it is encouraging that this has been highlighted in the 3-page report from the Consultant.

eu.bac will continue to engage with this work and look forward to seeing the output of the Task 2 work.