tunES

Tuning EPC and SRI instruments to deliver full potential

tunES will optimise Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) regulation and integrate it with the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) roll-out in 7 national and regional Energy Agencies, representing 132 million citizens. The agencies will follow the EU Better Regulation Guideline (BRG) to identify and assess the best policy measures.

The tunES Framework deploys BRG tools during policy design (inception, data collection, problem tree and policy options design) and assessment (impact assessment, iteration, prioritisation, roll-out planning) and continuous stakeholder engagement.

The core outcome are seven national policy measure packages including extensively vetted policy options, with clear impact, stakeholder reaction, and concise actions for realising full national implementations. On the EU-level, a comprehensive guidance strategy allows other stakeholders not only to access use cases but have all tools readily at hand for effective replication.

Seven Energy agencies are represented in tunES from different Member States: Austria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovenia.

The Technical Support Team consist of empirica, and technical experts from the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Cassino and Lublin University of Technology.

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The revised EU Buildings Directive (EPBD) defines clear targets, particularly in the areas of energy efficiency and digitalisation in the building sector. But which political measures will really move Austria forward - ambitious but feasible?

Answers to this question were sought at a hybrid stakeholder workshop organised by the tunES project on May 12^th 2025, which focused on the packages of measures developed in the project for the national implementation of the EPBD.
The workshop evaluated the key individual measures for implementing the revised EU Buildings Directive (EPBD) in Austria from a pragmatic perspective: Together with representatives from administration, business, science and practice, the measures were discussed online and in person, assessed in terms of their importance (priority) and feasibility and considered further.

Just over two years of project work for the tunES project lie behind us. With the support of the consortium, in particular the technical support team (TST), it was possible to carry out an in-depth analysis of the Austrian status quo regarding the energy performance certificate for buildings and the implementation of the European Buildings Directive and to develop political packages of measures and an implementation proposal.

The analysis of national problems involved intensive research into new procedures as well as numerous consultations, interviews and a workshop with stakeholders from the federal and provincial governments, science and industry. This made it possible to identify the most important objectives. The project applied a structured problem analysis and goal-setting process using BRG Tools No. 13 and No. 15*. This ensured that the scope of the problem, its causes and impacts were clearly understood and could be translated into specific, measurable targets consistent with EU and national energy efficiency objectives. On this basis, several policy options with different levels of ambition were developed, combining a variety of measures derived directly from the EPBD. These were in turn assessed using a rigorous, evidence-based methodology that combined qualitative and quantitative analyses. In line with BRG Tools No. 30, No. 32, No. 36 and No. 63, the assessment analysed economic, environmental and social impacts. It applied the theory of change to link actions to outcomes and objectives. The quantitative analysis modelled effectiveness and efficiency, while the qualitative assessment incorporated stakeholder feedback from surveys, interviews and workshops. A multi-criteria analysis ensured that aspects such as coherence, proportionality and stakeholder acceptance were fully considered and ultimately allowed the Austrian project team to make a recommendation for the resulting preferred option.

Results can be found on the project website at https://empirica.com/tunes/guidance/. Publicly available work results are the tunES Measures Collection and the tunES Practice Collection, publicly available collections of measures and procedures on energy certification and SRI, which are based on European and national research project results and are harmonised with the EPBD.

The project was successfully completed on 31 October 2025. The final event of the project took place on 24 September in Zagreb, Croatia.

 

^{*) Better Regulation Guidelines (BRG) of the European Commission}

Funding provider	European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), LIFE-2022-CET-BUILDPERFORM
Project management	Manuela Chriti
Projectteam	Naghmeh Altmann-Mavaddat Nicole Hartl
Projectpartner	empirica Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH (DE) Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (IT) Centre for Renewable Energy Sources (GR) Polish National Energy Conservation Agency (PL) Energy institute Hrvoje Požar (HR) Jožef Stefan Institute (SI) Építésügyi Minőségellenőrző Innovációs Nonprofit Kft (HU) University of Cassino and Southern Lazio (IT) Lublin University of Technology (PL) Technical University of Denmark (DK)
Projekt duration	September 2023 to August 2025