Austria

Overall assessment of SRI test phase

Coordination of SRI test phase

Austria volunteered to the non-committal test phase after the first call for expression of interest sent by the European Commission to all Member States in October 2021. 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 following LIFE projects are carrying out activities in the country: SRI2MARKET, easySRI, tunES.

Timeline of SRI test phase

The test phase started and was reported to the European Commission in September 2021, and it is expected to last for 2-3 years.

Activities carried out during the SRI test phase

During the test phase 17 buildings of diverse typologies (e.g., 6 educational, 6 office, 1 double-family and 5 multi-family) have been examined and assessed based on detailed documentation from the Austrian region and the federal government. The methodology followed focuses on energy flexibility estimation as the buildings ability to store energy as crucial for using renewables to meet CO2 reduction targets is considered vital.
In addition to the baseline SRI methodology, three more methods are analysed. The first one, developed by AEE Intec, represents a qualitative and quantitative calculation which also evaluates the load shift using dynamic profiles, intelligent equipment features as well as the user needs. The second one, proposed by BOKU calculates the buildings load shift potential based on indicators in terms of storage capacity and buildings’ communication with the network. Lastly, the third method is based on indicators from the international project “Energy-flexible buildings as part of resilient, low carbon energy systems“, focuses on the energy flexibility and represents a methodology for a simple quantitative SRI assessment as a flexible indicator.