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Proper resilience metrics (RMs) for energy systems are necessary to be identified, evaluated, and implemented to improve energy system resilience. The proposed framework aims to be implemented as a tool, in the form of an energy resilience matrix, for energy system evaluation. The application of the engineering and infrastructure part of the framework was demonstrated in evaluation of a sport activity area located in Sweden. The results show potential to improve the resilience by installing solar cells and increase battery storage capacity in the area, connect with neighbouring area and utilize vehicle to grid.

The electrification of vehicles has become a critical means to achieve climate-neutral transportation. As more electric vehicles (EV) are adopted, an increasing number of lithiumion batteries will be utilized, inevitably experiencing capacity degradation over time. Retaining the value of these retired batteries through remanufacturing, reusing, and repurposing to create a second life holds significant environmental and economic benefits. However, many companies within the battery ecosystem struggle to capitalize on this opportunity due to a lack of business insight and suitable business models tailored to their operational contexts.

The ReCreate (Second Life Management of Electric Vehicle Batteries) research project was initiated to address these industrial needs through close collaboration with selected companies in the battery ecosystem. The project aims to define appropriate circular business models, methods, and processes to guide battery ecosystem actors in developing and implementing electric vehicle battery second life solutions, thereby advancing circularity around batteries and climate-neutral objectives. 

This handbook represents the culmination of three years of research within the ReCreate project. Its purpose is to present a simplified and practical overview of project outcomes across a series of key chapters. Comprising six chapters, the handbook will begin by discussing barriers and enablers, followed by circular business models and battery ecosystem management. It will then delve into design principles and performance monitoring guidelines, concluding with an integrated framework for second life and circular solutions for EV batteries. 

Each chapter briefly presents the main findings of the theme and concludes with discussion questions. The discussion questions include suggestions for relevant templates for workshops, and all templates are conveniently provided in the appendix for practical application. These templates serve as boundary objects, offering a starting point for internal and external cross-functional and cross-organizational dialogues within the electric vehicle battery ecosystem. They facilitate discussions and collaborations among various stakeholders, fostering alignment and synergy in developing circular business models for the second life of EV batteries.  

By facilitating reflection on current business strategies, needs, and pain points, the handbook aims to aid in the definition of future second life business strategies. We anticipate that this handbook will serve as a valuable resource for actors within the EV battery ecosystem, supporting their journey towards climate-neutral transportation. 

In this study, a simple framework was developed that can help identify and quantify peak load at sports facilities called Rocklunda Fastigheter AB. By analysing the electricity demand profiles and electricity prices from the Nord pool market, we characterize the equipment contributing most to a particular peak load. In addition, we quantified peak loads that occur during high electricity prices. This framework is beneficial in choosing an appropriate demand-side management strategy for reducing peak loads and electricity costs for both academic and public end-users. Finally, a load-shifting strategy based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) was developed to minimize the total annual electricity cost. This approach suggests shifting the electricity demand to the early morning hours while reducing it in the evening when the electricity prices are higher. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis revealed the potential for savings of up to 9.5% when implementing a flexibility factor of 30%.

The urgent need to combat global warming has highlighted the significance of transitioning towards environmentally friendly energy sources. Acknowledged by the European Commission as a valuable approach for facilitating this transition, the energy community model offers promise to districts and cities seeking sustainable solutions. This paper focuses on the district of Sätra in Västerås, Sweden, and explores the potential of operating as an energy community. The study considers Sätra’s economic, social, and technical circumstances, as well as Sweden’s regulatory framework. The methodology consists mainly of interviews with specialists and urban actors, as well as reviewing the literature and relevant documents. The findings highlight various political, technical, social, and economic barriers that hinder the establishment of an energy community in Sätra, such as the absence of a clear definition for energy communities, intermittency of renewable energy sources, low awareness among residents and marginalization of some social groups, and insufficient funding for initiatives. To address these barriers, the study proposes several incentives and mitigation strategies. These include developing a comprehensive definition of “energy community”, establishing an umbrella organization to coordinate efforts, raising awareness among stakeholders, and securing adequate funding. The valuable insights provided by the current study on the establishment of an energy community in Sätra and the proposed incentives and mitigation strategies serve as a basis for further exploration and implementation, paving the way for a sustainable and resilient energy future in the district and the country.

The energy transition towards sustainable resources is more urgent than ever given the environmental and geopolitical challenges. Being one of the major energy users, cities need to understand their energy sector to accomplish its transition, by means of data. However, data are not easily accessible and have their own challenges. This paper presents a joint effort between researchers, city representatives and industry to provide an urban system service that supports research, accelerates urban innovation, and involves the community. An energy data portal, “NRGYHUB”, has been developed, where hourly data from thousands of energy meters are available. These meters were collected from neighborhoods in the city of Västerås, Sweden, and they measure electrical and heating energy. In addition, the data are complemented by geometrical and non-geometrical information of the buildings, as well as demographic statistics of the areas. The paper describes the process of data collection, preprocessing, and visualization, in addition to the main challenges and limitations of the project. This dataset can be used for energy use benchmarking, prediction, and analysis. 

This study adopts an ecosystem perspective to provide a detailed understanding of key challenges and enablers for implementing circular business models for electric vehicle battery second life. Although academia and practitioners believe electric vehicle (EV) batteries’ second life is a potential solution, the commercial implementations are still far away. A crucial step toward such implementations is to identify the key challenges and enablers of circular business models. The criticality of this step is even more evident when approaching second life business models from an ecosystem perspective, where multiple stakeholders are involved in the creation, capture, and delivery of value. This research conducts an explorative study with 15 companies in the EV battery ecosystem and identifies nine categories of key challenges and seven categories of key enablers. Based on priority dimensions (short/long term) and the responsible entity (firm/ecosystem related), the study proposes a guiding framework to address challenges and enablers. The study contributes to the circular business model innovation and ecosystems literature related to the EV battery second life.

Lithium-ion battery storage has emerged as a promising solution for various energy systems. However, complex degradation behavior, relatively short lifetime, high capital, and operational costs, and electricity market volatility are critical factors that challenge its practical viability. Thus, to ensure sustained profitability of Lithium-ion batteries in real-life applications, a smart and optimal management strategy considering key influencing factors is imperative for achieving efficient battery utilization. This study proposes two day-ahead battery-behavior-aware operation scheduling strategies to maximize profitability and longevity in residential grid-connected applications with dynamic electricity pricing. Each scenario employs unique approaches to make optimal decisions for optimal battery utilization. The first scenario optimizes short-term profitability by prioritizing revenue gains under three charge/discharge rates (high, moderate, low), considering daily charge and discharge timings as decision variables. Conversely, the second scenario proposes a smart strategy capable of making intelligent decisions on a wide range of variables to simultaneously maximize revenue and minimize degradation costs, ensuring short-term and long-term profitability. Decision variables include the cycle frequency for each specific day, timings as well as durations for charging and discharging per cycle. To ensure effective long-term assessment, both scenarios accurately estimate battery performance, calendric and cyclic capacity degradations, remaining-useful-lifetime, and internal states under real operational conditions until battery reaches its end-of-life criteria. The scenarios are assessed economically using various indicators. Furthermore, the impact of battery price and size on optimization outcomes are examined. The key findings indicate that, among the first set of scenarios, the strategy with low charge/discharge rate extends the battery lifetime most efficiently, estimated at 14.8 years. However, it proved to be the least profitable, resulting in negative profit of −3€/kWh/yr. On the other hand, strategies with high and moderate charge/discharge rates resulted in positive profit of 8.3 €/kWh/year and 9.2 €/kWh/year, despite having shorter battery lifetimes, estimated at 10.1 years and 13.6 years, respectively. Furthermore, from a payback perspective, the strategy with fast charge/discharge capability led to 1.5 years shorter payback period than that of the moderate rate strategy. The findings highlight that the first set of scenarios limits the strategy's flexibility in achieving both sustainability and profitability. In contrast, the second scenario achieves impressive profit (18 €/kWh/yr), shortest payback period (7.5 year), a commendable lifespan (12.5 years), contrasting revenue-focused scenarios, emphasizing the importance of striking optimal balance between revenue gain and degradation costs for charging/discharging actions, ensuring sustained profitability. The findings offer valuable insights for decision-makers, enabling informed strategic choices and effective solutions.

In this paper, balancing electricity production using renewable energy such as wind power, PV cells, hydropower, and CHP (combined heat and power) with biomass is carried out in relation to electricity consumption in primarily one major region in Sweden, SE-3, which contains 75% of the country's population. The time perspective is hours and days. Statistics with respect to power production and consumption are analyzed and used as input for power-balance calculations. How long periods are with low or high production, as well as the energy for charge and discharge that is needed to maintain a generally constant power production, is analyzed. One conclusion is that if the difference in production were to be completely covered with battery capacity it would be expensive, but if a large part of the difference were met by a shifting load it would be possible to cover the rest with battery storage in an economical way. To enhance the economy with battery storage, second-life batteries are proposed to reduce the capital cost in particular. Batteries are compared to hydrogen as an energy carrier. The efficiency of a battery system is higher than that of hydrogen plus fuel cells, but in general much fewer precious materials are needed with an H-2/fuel-cell system than with batteries. The paper discusses how to make the energy system more robust and resilient.

The relatively short lifetime of batteries is one of the crucial factors that affects its economic viability in current electricity markets. Thus, to make batteries a more viable technology in real power market from life cycle cost assessment perspective, full understanding of battery ageing parameters and which operating control strategies cause slower degradation rate is essential and still an open problem. This study deals with the 32 different battery operating control strategies to evaluate their importance on cyclic and calendric degradation, lifetime, and life cycle cost assessment of a battery system in a grid-connected residential application. In other words, it is evaluated that at which operating control strategy the system simulation results in a more beneficial system from techno-economic perspective. A battery modelling scenario is proposed to accurately estimate battery performance, degradation, and lifetime under real operational condition given different operating control strategies. An operational strategy, which benefits from the dynamic real-time electricity price scheme, is conducted to simulate the system operation. The key results show that selecting a proper state-of-charge control strategy positively affects the battery lifetime and consequently its net-present-value, in which the best strategy led to 30% improvement in net-present-value compared to the worst strategy.