Sweden will take on more of consumers’ skyrocketing energy bills
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
STOCKHOLM, Aug 31 (Reuters) – The Swedish government said on Wednesday it would probably have a bigger buffer than it previously expected to absorb some of the soaring energy costs for households and businesses this winter.
The government expects to have 90 billion kroner ($8.43 billion) available to help ease consumers’ pain from record electricity prices this year and next, Finance Minister Mikael Damberg told a news conference.
The Social Democratic government, which faces general elections in September, announced earlier this month that it will hand out about 60 billion kroner ($5.6 billion) to businesses and households. Read more
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Damberg said grid operator Svenska Kraftnat now predicted that its so-called bottleneck revenue, which will be used to cushion bills, would be SEK 30 billion higher in 2022 and 2023 than it had predicted a few months ago.
– This means that the total support can be up to five times greater than the support that was paid out during last winter’s electricity price compensation, he said.
Bottleneck revenues come from the operator’s handling of power flows from geographic areas with different rates.
“Given the (power market) prices are as high as they are, we now see that we have additional muscle in our high-cost protection system to meet an even worse situation,” Damberg said.
($1 = 10.6767 Swedish kronor)
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Reporting by Anna Ringström Editing by Bernadette Baum
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.