Energy-aware digital twin frameworks for port building clusters. Integrating structural health monitoring, smart metering, and retrofit prioritization

Ports combine clusters of operational buildings, shared energy infrastructure, and struc turally critical assets requiring coordinated management to ensure safety and efficiency. Nevertheless, existing Digital Twin (DT) frameworks for building energy management rarely integrate Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) with energy performance assessment, while port-specific implementations remain scarce. This paper presents a pre-operational energy-aware DT architecture for port building clusters, structured in a unified five-layer framework integrating three capabilities: (i) EGMS/InSAR-based SHM screening with planned in situ sensing and computer-vision inspection workflows; (ii) smart metering and measurement and verification (M&V) protocols aligned with ISO 50001/50015 and IPMVP standards; and (iii) weighted multi-criteria prioritization considering structural Academic Editors: Vasyl Zhelykh, Khrystyna Myroniuk and Zuzana Vranayova Received: 11 May 2026 Revised: 5 June 2026 Accepted: 12 June 2026 Published: 24 June 2026 Copyright: © 2026 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. condition, energy saving potential, service continuity, and cost. The framework is applied to the Port of Formia (Italy), a brownfield district comprising nine buildings (3371 m2), 16 high-mast lighting towers, shore power infrastructure, and 90 kWp of planned photo voltaics. In the absence of operational metering, energy and carbon values are reported as bounded ex-ante scenario estimates, not as verified performance outcomes. The analysis estimates photovoltaic generation of 116–137 MWh/year and lighting retrofit savings of 31.5–36.8 MWh/year; the related carbon values are treated as gross grid-displacement upper bounds pending measured self-consumption and export data. A four-phase valida tion roadmap with quantitative acceptance criteria supports the transition from feasibility assessment to verified performance.