Last year, electricity consumption in Sweden decreased and much has been postponed to the future. Recently, there has been increasing talk that the electrification of society has been put on hold. But Svenska kraftnät's huge waiting list of large electricity consumers wanting to connect to the grid shows a different picture.
"It's about 12,000 megawatts in just the next four or five years that want to enter the electricity grid, and that's about half of what Sweden consumes on a cold winter day," says Daniel Gustafsson, head of the Power System Development department at Svenska kraftnät.
Data centers and heavy industry
So there are very large amounts of consumption that we still see coming into the system, he continues.
Two electricity-consuming areas dominate Svenska kraftnät's queue: data centers and heavy industry.
Data centers - that's basically where most of it is, in Central Sweden, in the Mälardalen, you could say, says Gustafsson.
Higher price
This makes it important to get a large increase in electricity supply in that area. Otherwise, the price of electricity risks rising in electricity area 3 (the Stockholm region, Svealand and northern Götaland), according to Gustafsson.
And then when it comes to industry, I would say the majority is in northern Sweden and along the Norrland coast in Norrbotten (steel industries SSAB and Stegra). But we also see large requests around the big cities of Gothenburg and Malmö, he says.
Approximately the same amount of electricity production is in Svenska kraftnät's connection queue for the next ten years; most of it is solar and onshore wind power, much of it in the northern parts of the country.
So in the short term, before any nuclear power comes online, there will continue to be an electricity deficit in southern Sweden.
Despite all the talk about the electrification of society, electricity consumption in Sweden has remained virtually unchanged for the last 30–40 years. Last year it fell marginally.
At the same time, electricity production has increased and electricity exports have reached record levels.
Svenska kraftnät's connection queue for electricity consumption currently totals 32,450 MW (megawatts) through 2045. This can be compared to today's power peaks on a cold winter day of around 24,000 MW.
The connection queue for electricity production amounts to 22,600 MW through 2045.
Source: Svenska kraftnät
