In October 2024, Sweden and the Nordic countries introduced so-called flow-based capacity calculation. This would increase the transfer of electricity between the cheap areas in the north to the more expensive ones in the southern half of the country in congested electricity networks.
But a study at the University of Tampere shows that the new method sometimes does the opposite: “It maximizes bottleneck revenues rather than benefits for consumers and producers,” writes researcher Juha Koskela.
"Unnecessarily high prices"
Half of the time examined in the first half of 2025, electricity flowed from the more expensive electricity area 3 (Svealand, northern Götaland) to the cheaper Finland, according to the study.
"It provided extra revenue to the system operators (for example, Svenska kraftnät) but led to unnecessarily high area prices and strange circular flows," writes a critical Mats Nilsson, electricity market analyst and associate professor at Södertörn University, in a comment to TT.
Mårten Bergman, section manager for wholesale markets at Svenska kraftnät, says that the Finnish study is not comprehensive.
It is clear that if you single out a single limit, it can have those effects. But on the whole, the total benefit is maximized.
83 billion
Despite the extensive criticism over the past year, Svenska kraftnät's own evaluation of the new system for controlling electricity between the country's terminals shows a positive result.
If we look at how it has developed, we see an increased transfer of electricity from northern to southern Sweden.
Nevertheless, bottleneck fees (which arise from price differences between different electricity areas) have almost doubled, from SEK 13 billion last year to SEK 24.5 billion from January to October this year. In total, Svenska kraftnät has SEK 83 billion in the bottleneck account.
It's because we've had this fundamental situation where we've had a lot of surplus in the north, which means that prices have become very low there, says Bergman.
It's not like it's due to the effects of what this study from Tampere concludes?
I don't dare to comment on that, then you would have had to isolate those effects from what else happened, says Bergman.
Bottleneck revenues arise when there is not enough transmission capacity for electricity between different electricity areas.
The bottleneck income consists of the price difference between the areas and goes to the party that transports the electricity between the areas, i.e. Svenska kraftnät.
The largest price differences are usually found between electricity area 2, southern Norrland, and area 3, Svealand.
The idea is that state-owned Svenska kraftnät will use the bottleneck revenues to improve the national grid and thereby increase transmission capacity. But so far, more money has flowed in than Svenska kraftnät has had time to spend.
