The national association of house owners rages against the electricity prices.
The differences between north and south are extreme – and something must be done, writes the social policy manager Håkan Larsson at SvD Debatt.
According to him, it is “a system error”.
In October, the average price for electricity, excluding taxes and fees, was 14.2 öre per kilowatt hour in electricity area SE1 (Luleå) and 13.5 öre in SE2 (Sundsvall).
In southern Sweden, the average price was 62.8 öre per kilowatt hour in SE3 (Stockholm) and 71.3 öre in SE4 (Malmö).
The villa owners’ anger: “Not reasonable”
The large price differences between north and south have been on the news for longer, and now the National Confederation of Villa Owners is demanding that the government act. In a debate article in Svenska Dagbladet, the association’s social policy director Håkan Larsson writes:
“It is not reasonable that it should be five times more expensive to heat a house in Skåne than in Norrbotten. It is also not reasonable that the price of electricity should be five times as high to bake a Pågens loaf in Malmö as a Polar bread in Älvsbyn. Sweden is a country and there must be competitive neutrality, both for companies and for households.”
He states that Svenska kraftnät is also prioritizing building new export cables. Recently, the Aurora line power line was put into operation between the Swedish Messaure in Lapland and the Finnish Pyhänselkä outside Oulu, barely eight years after the project started.
The requirement: Prioritize the Swedish trunk network
And this is questioned by Håkan Larsson.
He would rather have “the acute bottlenecks” for electricity transmission between Sweden’s electricity areas removed.
“It is these bottlenecks that mean that northern Sweden has a significant electricity surplus while southern Sweden is forced to pay the continent’s prices. Increasing export capacity before removing the internal restrictions is a system error for which Swedish households must now pay the price”he writes on SvD Debatt.
Håkan Larsson’s demand is that the government acts for “reasonable and fair” electricity prices throughout the country. He proposes, among other things, a discount on the energy tax, that the electricity price areas be reviewed and that the government is clear that Swedish Power Grid must prioritize the domestic grid.
“Sweden is one country, not four electricity price areas”writes the head of social policy.
