Bottleneck revenues arise when Svenska kraftnät handles the large price differences in electricity between regions. In a prognosis, the authority expects to receive an additional 146 billion kronor, a total of over 200 billion, in bottleneck revenues by 2035 – money that electricity customers, primarily in the southern half of the country, will have to pay.
Shouldn't this money come back to the customers in some way?
Yes, it's true that it's an enormous amount of money. We're sitting on 65 billion that we're waiting to use. But we do use bottleneck revenues repeatedly, says Peter Wigert, financial director at Svenska kraftnät.
Electricity Support
However, the regulations partly put a stop to this. When bottleneck revenues were used to pay out state electricity support last year, the authority was granted temporary exemption from the rules.
At the same time, we can now show in this prognosis that by 2035, we will have used them to cover costs, keep network fees down, and also invest in the network for capacity reinforcement, says Wigert.
So, indirectly, the customers will benefit, with 7 billion kronor in the form of lower network fees in 2024, although it's a relatively modest part compared to the total electricity network fees that companies and customers have to pay.
Small Comfort
Among other things, major transmission projects from north to south will be financed over the next 5-10 years, precisely to reduce price differences between regions, and then Svenska kraftnät will largely refrain from charging customers fees.
It's the small comfort in this, that these bottleneck revenues will benefit the customers, even if it takes a little longer, says Peter Wigert.
In an updated investment plan for new transmission lines, Svenska kraftnät is investing 57 billion kronor during the period 2026-2028, which is 13 billion kronor more than the previous rolling three-year period. The new plan includes, among other things, a new connection to Gotland.
Bottleneck revenues, or capacity fees as they are also called, arise when there are large price differences between electricity areas, often between electricity area 2 (southern Norrland) and 3 (Svealand and northern Götaland).
The price differences arise when the capacity in the network is not sufficient to transfer the electricity surplus in the north to the south where the supply is too small.
When Svenska kraftnät handles this, revenues arise for the authority corresponding to the price differences.
The stated purpose of the electricity areas is to stimulate the elimination of imbalances. This has not happened in recent years, on the contrary, more electricity has been added in the north, while much electricity production has disappeared in the south. And the transmission lines between regions are not sufficient, even though Svenska kraftnät has expanded some.
