A new EU web tool turns the Smart Readiness Indicator into practical steps for historic buildings, helping improve comfort and efficiency while protecting heritage.
Europe’s historic buildings carry enormous cultural value, yet improving their energy performance and day to day operation is rarely straightforward. A new web tool from the EU funded project SMARTeeSTORY offers a practical way forward by showing how far a building is on its journey to becoming smart and what to do next, while keeping heritage constraints in mind.
At the heart of the tool is the Smart Readiness Indicator, a European Commission initiative that measures how well a building can optimise energy use, adapt to occupants, and work with the energy grid. The Commission’s guidance explains that assessments look across nine technical domains, from heating and cooling to lighting, electric vehicle charging, and monitoring and control, then aggregate the results into a single score and class. This gives owners and public bodies a shared language for planning digital upgrades that are effective and appropriate for protected fabric.
The SMARTeeSTORY team built the web tool on the Commission’s expert assessment method, which means the calculation follows the official framework and produces results that are consistent and comparable. The development was led by TECNALIA and enhanced with RINA-C, and the interface guides users through each step so that experts can go deep and non experts can still get to a robust result.
What makes the latest release especially useful is the decision support it adds on top of the assessment. Users can set targets based on energy, environmental or economic priorities, they receive tailored suggestions for smart solutions that raise the score, and they can explore a built in financial view with high level estimates of savings and cost effectiveness. This turns an audit into an actionable plan rather than a static number.
The tool has been tried on three real heritage demonstrators in Riga, Granada and Delft, and the results are encouraging. After planned interventions, showing that non invasive digital measures can deliver high smart readiness without altering protected structures. For owners and municipalities this is a strong signal that careful digital upgrades can unlock better comfort and control, and can support energy goals even in sensitive buildings. Although it is tailored to historic buildings, the team stresses that the approach is relevant across other building types as well, which helps with replication and scaling. That matters for anyone managing a mixed portfolio or planning city wide renovation strategies. The project’s launch materials position the tool for a broad set of users, including building owners and facility managers, energy auditors, public authorities, architects and engineers, as well as researchers who want consistent data on building smartness.
Key takeaway for the REHOUSE project
For the REHOUSE community this is highly practical. Many renovation pathways rely on digital controls, monitoring and automation to get the most from envelope and systems upgrades. A tool that translates the SRI method into clear next steps and indicative payback can help teams prioritise measures that respect heritage, fit procurement cycles, and deliver measurable operational benefits. The Commission’s materials also note that the SRI sits within the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which helps align digital readiness with a broader policy framework that countries are progressively testing.
The takeaway is simple. Smart does not have to mean intrusive. With a method that is recognised at the European level, a guided interface that turns assessment into action, and real world evidence from three heritage sites, SMARTeeSTORY’s SRI web tool gives building owners and public authorities a credible way to plan digital upgrades that protect what is valuable and improve how buildings perform every day.
Source of information: SMARTeeSTORY Launches New SRI Web Tool for Historic Buildings – SMARTeeSTORY
Website: https://www.smarteestory.eu/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smarteestory-project
