Achieving climate targets and energy independence requires holistic, cross-sector energy optimization of renewables, energy storage, and buildings. Yet Sweden and Europe remain constrained by siloed systems, price volatility, limited flexibility frameworks, and technical, economic, policy, and digital barriers, including missing interoperable models and remuneration structures.

BESSFlex addresses this gap by synthesizing the state of flexible sector coupling (FSC), clarifying the roles of buildings, energy storage (thermal and electrical), renewables, and digitalization through techno-economic, stakeholder, and digital framework analyses to identify key drivers and barriers. Energy storage are flexibility enablers and heat pumps, electric boilers, chillers, and solar photovoltaic (PV) enable buildings to act as prosumers and key distributed FSC hubs amid rising intermittent wind and solar generation. Digitalization can aid FSC adoption through smart building control and operation.

BESSFlex will therein unlock the true potential in FSC between electrical and thermal systems through buildings and their energy storage, positioning them as active nodes that store, produce, and exchange energy, coupled with the definition of relevant digital maturity frameworks. BESSFlex hence will drive buildings as key components in energy transition and climate mitigation, with benefits along the entire value chain: buildings, users, energy companies and the society.