Industry and manufacturing · Electricity
Electricity in industry and manufacturing: what the SRI measures
This domain covers the building's electricity management: batteries, solar panels, shifting consumption to cheap hours, reporting to users and responding to grid signals. It is the core of energy flexibility.
In short
- 1This page explains how the Smart Readiness Indicator works for industrial and production buildings.
- 2The Electricity domain carries the highest weight here, with a weighting factor of 3 out of 3.
- 3For industry, the SRI assesses only the building and its installations, not the production process itself.
Weight of this domain for this building type
Which services count
| Service | Lowest level | Highest level | Advice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reporting information regarding local electricity generation E-2 · A · 5 levels | None | Performance evaluation including forecasting and/or benchmarking; also including predictive management and fault detection | highest level |
| Storage of (locally generated) electricity E-3 · A · 5 levels | None | On site storage of energy (e.g. electric battery or thermal storage) with controller optimising the use of locally generated electricity and possibility to feed back into the grid | highest level |
| Optimizing self-consumption of locally generated electricity E-4 · 4 levels | None | Automated management of local electricity consumption based on current and predicted energy needs and renewable energy availability | – |
| Control of combined heat and power plant (CHP) E-5 · 3 levels | CHP control based on scheduled runtime management and/or current heat energy demand | CHP runtime control influenced by the fluctuating availability of RES and grid signals; dynamic charging and runtime control to optimise self-consumption of renewables | – |
| Support of (micro)grid operation modes E-8 · 4 levels | None | Automated management of (building-level) electricity consumption and supply, with potential to continue limited off-grid operation (island mode) | – |
| Reporting information regarding energy storage E-11 · A · 5 levels | None | Performance evaluation including forecasting and/or benchmarking; also including predictive management and fault detection | highest level |
| Reporting information regarding electricity consumption E-12 · A · 5 levels | None | Real-time feedback or benchmarking on appliance level with automated personalized recommendations | highest level |
Worked example
If everything in this domain is at level 0, the domain contributes nothing. At the highest level for all services, the indicative total score for this building type rises by about 4 percentage points (from 34 to 38 percent, with all other domains at level 1).
What does the Smart Readiness Indicator measure in industrial and production buildings?
The Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) assesses how well a building's technical installations are prepared for intelligent energy use. In industrial buildings, the SRI looks only at the building and its installations, not at the production process. Machines and production lines are therefore outside the scope of the assessment.
This distinction matters, because many industrial sites already have energy management for their process. The SRI looks at what happens around that: the building-related installations such as electricity supply, storage and heating.
Industrial buildings often have a large electrical connection. Because of this, demand flexibility, shifting consumption to cheaper or greener times, is in this building type often directly worth money.
Why does the Electricity domain carry the highest weight here?
The Electricity domain covers the building's power management: batteries, solar panels, shifting consumption to off-peak hours and responding to signals from the electricity grid. For industry and production, this domain receives the highest weighting factor, namely 3 out of 3.
This is because industrial buildings often have large electrical installations and sometimes generate or store energy themselves. Services such as E-3, storage of locally generated electricity, and E-8, support for microgrid operating modes, are more relevant here than in smaller-scale buildings.
Reporting services also count, such as E-12 on electricity consumption and E-2 on local generation. They show whether a building provides insight into energy flows, which is necessary to actually use flexibility.
What does this mean for the SRI obligation?
The SRI is currently voluntary. Under the EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive), the European Commission must adopt a delegated act by 30 June 2027 at the latest.
That act is expected to make the SRI mandatory for buildings with an installation above 290 kW. Many industrial buildings fall above that threshold, which means building automation has often already been mandatory for them since the end of 2024, separate from the SRI itself.
What this means for you
- Owner
- As the owner of an industrial building, it is wise to check whether the building-related electrical installations already meet the higher functionality levels of services such as storage and reporting. This domain carries the highest weight for this building type, so improvements here will have the greatest effect on the final class.
- Tenant
- As a user of industrial space, you will particularly notice whether the building provides insight into electricity consumption and whether energy costs are predictable and manageable. A higher score on this domain can translate into lower energy costs through smarter use of off-peak or self-generated electricity.
- Advisor
- When carrying out the assessment, pay careful attention to the boundary between process installations and building-related installations, as only the latter counts for the SRI. Also check whether existing energy management systems for the process are inadvertently being counted, and whether the connection falls above the 290 kW threshold with a view to the future delegated act.
Next step
Want to know where your building stands?