Digital Energy Building Framework Applied to a Heritage-Listed Building in an Alpine Context: The Case of the ENI Village of Borca di Cadore

Directive (EU) 2024/1275 establishes a common framework for rating the smart readiness of buildings through the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), under Article 15 and Annex IV. For hotels, as non-residential buildings, the SRI provides a structured approach to evaluate a building's capacity to adapt its operation to occupants' needs, optimize energy performance, and interact with the energy grid. The Digital Energy Building (DEB) framework applies the SRI as an ex-ante design tool, identifying Improvement Opportunities (IOs) to transition existing buildings into smart energy systems. However, heritage-listed buildings in alpine contexts represent an unexplored boundary case: preservation constraints limit the set of feasible IOs, while the geographic setting determines a specific availability of local natural resources. This paper applies the DEB framework to the ENI Village of Borca di Cadore (Belluno, Veneto) as a first case study in this category, starting from the opportunity to exploit local biomass production with a new heating plant. The estimated baseline SRI for Hotel Boite is below 5% (Class G, < 20%), showcasing the Latent Smartness Paradox. Local forest biomass is identified as the primary system-level IO, with building digitalization serving as the enabling interface between built heritage and the Hotel Boite heating system. The expected post-IO SRI increases to approximately 32%, gaining 1 class with minimal intervention.