Project

Building-Integrated Energy Storage and Electro-Mobility for Flexible Energy Communities: A Swedish Perspective

A knowledge synthesis of the role of battery energy storage systems and charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in buildings for flexible energy communities.

PROJECT INFORMATION
Timeline
January – May 2025

Total cost of project
486 300 SEK

Swedish Energy Agency’s project number
P2024-03165

Coordinator
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Participants
RISE

Project manager and contact
Chang Su: chang.su@mdu.se

This synthesis study has mapped the state of knowledge regarding battery energy storage systems (BESS) and electric vehicles (EVs) in energy communities, with a particular focus on relevance to Sweden. The study systematically reviewed 218 scientific publications (2016–2025) and combined traditional evidence synthesis with NLP-based text mining, topic modeling, and structured tagging across technical, economic, social, and governance-related dimensions.

The aim has been to identify what works, where knowledge gaps exist, and how Sweden can accelerate the integration of energy storage and electromobility in buildings within flexible energy communities.

The review shows a rapidly growing but uneven research field, with a sharp increase in publications after 2019. Research is primarily focused on the neighborhood scale. Combinations of solar photovoltaics (PV) and batteries dominate, while integrated solutions involving EVs, sector coupling, and real-world performance remain limited.

Sweden is underrepresented in the literature (~4% of the articles), but stands out for its stronger focus on PV/EV integration as well as policy, regulation, and social acceptance—strengths that can be leveraged to move from modeling to real, implementable, and equitable solutions.

Key Results

Rapidly growing research field
Energy research within energy communities has increased significantly since 2019, but largely focuses on PV–BESS at the neighborhood scale. Integrated electricity–heat–mobility solutions and collaboration between multiple actors are still rare.

Methodological bias
Scenario analysis and optimization models (particularly MILP/LP) dominate, while empirical validation, long-term studies, and open datasets remain недостатlige.

Limited use of EVs as a flexibility resource
EVs are often modeled as loads rather than as controllable assets (smart charging, V2B/V2G), meaning that potential value-creation opportunities are overlooked.

Imbalance in ESG aspects
The environmental dimension is often prioritized, while social equity, democratic governance, and practical regulatory issues are treated more sporadically, risking unequal outcomes and implementation challenges.

Few articles focus on Sweden
Only nine out of 218 articles explicitly address Sweden. These show a relatively stronger focus on PV/EV integration, policy/regulation, and social acceptance. Integration of heating and prosumer/transition studies is less prominent.

More from the project

Deliveries are mainly in Swedish if not tated otherwise. Click on the links to access the material.

Building-Integrated Energy Storage and Electro-Mobility for Flexible Energy Communities: A Swedish Perspective

Key Results

More from the project

Resurseffektiv bebyggelse