Energy communities – where research meets practical energy supply

Energy supply is currently one of the most pressing issues in the urban development sector. Capacity shortages in power grids, increasing peak demand, the need for backup power, and higher requirements for robustness and resilience are already part of everyday reality for many municipalities, property owners, and organisations. At the same time, we know that major systemic changes, regulations, market models, and technological shifts take time.

It is within this tension that Tyréns operates. As an urban development consultancy and as a research actor through our foundation, we work in parallel with solutions that create value both in the short term and in the long term.

An emerging market with a clear need

Today’s energy market is characterised by multiple stakeholders and interdependencies. Local and regional electricity grids must handle both increased electricity consumption and more decentralised energy production, often in the same locations and at the same times. The challenge is not a lack of ideas, but rather how to use limited resources more intelligently together.

This is where energy communities emerge as an interesting approach.

Energy communities supporting the power grid

In the research project Energy Communities Supporting the Power Grid, Tyréns collaborates with Power Circle, ViaEuropa, Öresundskraft, and Jämtkraft Elnät. Together, we are exploring how energy communities can deliver tangible local benefits to the grid and under what conditions they provide the greatest value.

Key questions include:

• Where in the energy system does coordinated local production, storage, and flexibility create the greatest system value?
• When can energy communities help reduce peak loads or strengthen local resilience?
• How can local solutions better interact with higher-level grid

The vision is simple yet powerful: coordinated use of limited resources to maximise societal benefit.

The Energy Communities project is part of Tyréns’ broader research and innovation work within the energy sector. We are currently running five initiatives, including:

• Prosperous – studying how profitability assessments for investments in battery storage can be improved
• V2G Pre-study – exploring electric vehicles as an active and integrated part of the energy system
• ReSAS Lab – participating in an application to establish a centre of excellence for research on resilient, adaptive, and secure systems for critical infrastructure, including energy infrastructure
• Reveal – an innovation that visualises and calculates heat leakage from buildings to better prioritise effective measures

What these initiatives have in common is that they address the energy system of the future, while being firmly grounded in today’s real-world challenges.

What can be done today?

Many agree that regulatory changes and new market models are needed to fully unlock the potential of energy communities. However, the needs are already here—and much can be done even before new frameworks are in place.

Today, Tyréns can support with:

• Power and capacity analyses
• Identification of flexible resources and controllable loads
• Analysis of opportunities for energy sharing and local coordination
• Recommendations and business case analyses for energy efficiency, flexibility, and storage
• Engineering design and preparation of procurement documentation

The goal is to scale up effective subsystems, strengthen local solutions, and enable them to optimise against the overall energy system, step by step.

Would you like to shape the next step?

Are you interested in exploring energy communities further, participating as a research partner, or getting support in a specific energy project?

Feel free to reach out to us whether your focus is on today’s challenges or tomorrow’s energy systems.

The results from the Energy Communities research project will be presented at Almedalen on June 24, 2026.

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