SRI2MARKET

REHVA is one of the 12 project partners (9 countries) and during 2023 is involved in most of the activities as co-contributor while also leading one of the 6 work packages dealing with "Stakeholder engagement and roadmapping" which covers the following aspects: development of national stakeholder engagement plans, setup of national expert panels, coordination and cross-learning for national stakeholder consultations, links and synergies with EU initiatives and projects.

Funded by the European Union, under the LIFE programme with the Grant Agreement Nº 101077280. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The SRI2MARKET project differentiates its objective as follows:

1. Member States with official test phases launched: Austria and France

SRI2MARKET will both support – through its disseminated messages, use cases and tools – and learn from the national testing phases. In this case, the main objective of the project is to be complementary to the planned national activities, and showcase the successes and obstacles of the testing phases so that other Member States can learn and plan accordingly the rollout of the SRI in their markets.

2. Member States with active interest in the SRI: Portugal and Spain

SRI2MARKET will support these Member States on moving forward with designing and implementing a testing phase and/or an SRI rollout when they choose to. The main objective of the project is to disseminate lessons learned from the testing phase of the Member States in the previous group, and act as a catalyst for accelerating the relevant policy decisions in the Member States of this group by initiating stakeholder dialogues and making a series of tools and use cases available.

3. Member States where SRI2MARKET can lay the groundwork for policy makers to decide how to proceed with the SRI: Croatia and Cyprus

The main goal of the project is to engage national policy and market stakeholders so that to create interest in the SRI and the opportunities that may emerge from it.

The specific objectives of the SRI2MARKET project are as follows:

Objective 1: Support the targeted EU Member States (Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Portugal, Spain) on introducing the SRI into their national regulation

SRI2MARKET will produce recommendations for each of the targeted Member States on: (a) integrating the SRI into the current national regulatory framework for buildings (including performance requirements and building certification schemes), (b) evaluating whether the default SRI calculation methodology is appropriate or whether adaptations are required, and (c) using the SRI as an effective policy instrument to achieve the national energy and climate policy goals.

Objective 2: Propose public funding schemes to finance SRI upgrades in buildings

The project will set up and fuel – through evidence-based proposals – a stakeholder dialogue process with key national power market stakeholders (regulatory agencies, energy agencies, system operators) so as to jointly define how improvements in SRI rating should be compensated in order to provide the appropriate incentives to the building renovation market. The goal is to incentive energy efficiency measures that can help phase out old polluting power generation plants that exist only for serving peak demand, and/or mitigate the need for additional power generation capacity that is non-economically viable.

Objective 3: Develop tools to guide SRI assessors and streamline building assessments

The tools are collectively referred to as the “SRI2MARKET Tool Suite”, and they will all be accessible through a unifying, multilingual web portal.

Objective 4: Provide training to EPC assessors on the SRI and the methodology of its calculation

The SRI2MARKET will offer e-learning lessons on the SRI and its assessment methodology. The learning materials will be developed originally in the English language and, then, translated into native project partner languages by each project partner. The materials will include:

• Information on the background and concept of the SRI;
• Explanations on the services in the SRI catalogue and the way they affect energy efficiency and demand flexibility;
• Guidelines on conducting SRI assessments (both A and B methods).

Over the lifetime of the project, the material will be gradually enhanced to teach a highly productive workflow for conducting SRI assessments.

Objective 5: Set up SRI pilots at national level so as to identify best practices for SRI assessments

The strategy of SRI2MARKET is to connect the users of the e-learning service with building owners that want indicative buildings of their portfolio assessed. To this end:

• The project will invite real estate developers, asset management companies and facility managers to receive information on the SRI assessment process, have indicative buildings in their portfolio assessed, and receive recommendations for measures to improve the SRI ratings.
• An SRI Support Team will be set up to support the SRI assessors and identify further needs for tools and guidelines for them, as well as best practices in terms of data collection and evaluation.

Objective 6: Provide recommendations to building owners and facility managers on cost-effective SRI upgrades

SRI2MARKET will develop and disseminate recommendations to guide building owners in selecting automation capabilities that best fit their buildings. The recommendations will be based on a series of use cases that will: (a) present practical examples of how specific technology upgrades in different types of technical in-building systems are translated into improvements in the SRI rating, and (b) what can be achieved, in terms of energy savings and demand flexibility, by upgrading the SRI of different technology packages.