Towards a carbon-neutral community: Integrated renewable energy systems (IRES)–sources, storage, optimization, challenges, strategies and opportunities

The depletion of fossil fuels and the impacts of climate deterioration present significant challenges to achieving sustainable development goals. Developed nations worldwide are actively transitioning their energy mix to address these challenges. One promising solution is integrated renewable energy systems (IRES), which offer low-emission energy supply systems and proximity to end consumers. Compared to traditional or single-source energy supply systems, IRES have potential to reduce carbon emissions by 10 % to 50 % and can achieve a substantial 42 % reduction in operating costs. Furthermore, energy storage technologies effectively address energy supply intermittency issues, leading to additional reductions in operating costs and the carbon footprint. This comprehensive review examines renewable energy sources (RES), energy storage technologies, and system optimization methods that pertain to IRES. It highlights the significant potential of IRES in energy conservation and emissions reduction. This study identifies the challenges such as government policies, renewable energy (RE) instability, energy storage technologies, and public acceptance, and proposes strategies for overcoming these obstacles from three perspectives of the government, researchers, and the public. Importantly, the review emphasizes potential breakthroughs for future IRES development, including artificial intelligence, battery pollution, phase change energy storage, and building lifecycle emission reduction, providing actionable avenues for advancing IRES development. The study concludes that with concerted efforts in policy and technological innovation, IRES can not only meet but potentially exceed future energy demands.