When a power cable to Germany recently broke and electricity prices in southern Sweden plummeted immediately, we got the definitive answer: the interconnectors are a direct threat to Swedish households and Swedish businesses. We must cut the cables to other countries and look after our own interests. The electricity price fell from around 1 SEK to just a few öre, which is more reasonable during a warm summer.
The power cables to Poland and Denmark were disconnected in early October 2022, which gave southern Sweden the cheapest electricity since the beginning of August that year.
– The more Sweden exports, the more electricity is needed, and then more expensive electricity generation is brought into use. All of this has an impact because the electricity price is generally higher in our neighbouring countries, stated Erik Ek, Head of Strategic Operations at Svenska Kraftnät, at the time.
We live under the EU's thumb: under EU regulations, Sweden is obliged to offer other countries the opportunity to buy the electricity available in Sweden, as long as there is capacity in the cables. As a result, we are infected by the high prices in other countries. After all, the EU is built on the free movement of goods and services; electricity included.
One more example: In December 2024, the electricity price in southern Sweden rose to 8 kronor per kWh for those with an hourly electricity contract. Why is that? Simply because the wind wasn't blowing! That's what happens when an entire continent makes itself dependent on something as unpredictable as the weather and the wind. Are we really going to shut down our industries when the wind doesn't deign to blow?
Sweden has become a raw material colony for the rest of the EU and we Swedes have become an enslaved people to be exploited. We are destroying our nature and property prices by building wind turbines we do not need in the name of the holy climate. Little Sweden with delusions of grandeur is going to save the world. We export all produced wind electricity. The ”export cables” are in practice imported price increases.
Through foolish energy policy, Germany has completely shut down its nuclear power, become dependent on expensive gas and coal, and when their prices soar – which they do regularly – we in Sweden are supposed to bail them out, just like the Danes who have gone all in on the mercy of the weather gods.
Vattenfall’s investments in nuclear power will have to wait, reports Dagens Industri. Instead, SEK 62 billion is to be invested in wind power over the next five years, primarily in Germany and the Netherlands. ”We want to contribute to the climate transition,” says Chief Financial Officer Kerstin Ahlfont. No, she wants to contribute to greenwashing! With our forests, we are offsetting our carbon emissions to 100%.
Even if the whole of Sweden disappears tomorrow, nobody will notice any difference. It’s easy to be generous with other people’s money. It’s downright criminal how things are run. How is it possible that a state-owned company is allowed to throw Swedish electricity consumers’ hard-earned money down the drain on worthless wind power. What’s more, in other countries, money that should be going towards electricity transmission from the north to the south of our own country. It is completely mental.
Why should we subsidise Germany's mistakes? Germany chose to close all its nuclear power plants. That was their decision, and it is their problem. Not ours. Yet it is Swedish electricity consumers and Swedish industry that have to pay the bill through exorbitant electricity prices while the Germans continue their unsustainable energy policy.
The government realised this when it stopped Hansa PowerBridge, the planned new cable to Germany. It has also paused Konti-Skan Connect to Denmark until further notice. Denmark is practically Germany's electricity trading partner, and the cables there simply become a gateway for German prices.
Electricity is not an ordinary commodity. It has to be produced in the exact same second that it is consumed. Our industrial workers cannot wait for the next delivery if the price skyrockets, and our pensioners cannot negotiate the electricity price when the cold bites.
If other countries are dependent on Swedish electricity to stabilise their grids, then it is they who should pay for our security – not the other way around. Why should Swedish consumers get German prices when we produce cheap Swedish electricity?
Sweden has enough electricity generation to supply itself every day of the year if we expand transmission between north and south. The money is already there in the form of the congestion revenues. The same money that the EU also wants to pinch and use in other countries.
The problem is that we are exporting a fifth of our production and thereby driving up prices in our own deficit areas.
Norway has already realised this – their governing party wants to cut the cables to Denmark. It is time Sweden does the same. We should not produce cheap electricity for others and get their high prices back in return. We must put our own house in order first. Leave the EU, cut the cables, lower the prices, secure Sweden's energy future.
Astrid Lofs, biologist, PhD, Ambition Sverige | The Swedish electricity grid | Image: Grok AI