Sweden rejects applications for exemptions from the electricity grid, Energy News, ET EnergyWorld
European Union rules require TSOs to make at least 70% of the capacity of power cables running between different price zones available to traders, as a way of ensuring the free flow of power in the internal electricity market.
Sweden is divided into four different tender zones and TSO Svenska kraftnaet had in October applied for an exemption for eight domestic and international connections to help deal with unwanted flows and bottlenecks in the network.
The regulator said it rejected four requests to extend exemptions granted for 2020 and 2021 by another year for interconnection cables with Denmark, Germany, Poland and Lithuania, as they had not been applied in 2021 and the flow situation is expected to improve with each passing year.
Two more requests for transmission lines that cross bid zones internally in Sweden were rejected because the 70 percent rule does not apply to domestic lines, it added.
At the same time, the supervisory authority said that it intended to agree to Svenska kraftnaet’s request for an exemption for connections to western Denmark and Finland to deal with flow problems caused by reduced nuclear power production at the Ringhals reactor and new connections between the Nordic countries and continental Europe.
However, it has referred the two cases to the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) for decision because both Denmark and Finland oppose an exemption, said Ei. (Report by Nora Buli, edited by Terje Solsvik)