“The government is eliminating nuclear power plants. For the climate, it would be smart to get rid of the government. » Since the end of January, posters of the Conservative Party have been popping up in the town centers of Sweden and the leader of the opposition, Ulf Kristersson, never misses an opportunity to recall his attachment to nuclear energy. For its part, the Social Democratic Party, alone in government since the departure of the ecologists in November 2021, declared on January 13 that it was in favor of nuclear power – but not natural gas – being considered as a green investment at European level. On January 27, the government also gave the green light to the nuclear waste burial site near the Forsmark power station.
In Sweden, since the 1980 referendum that endorsed the gradual abandonment of nuclear power, the future of the atom has never really left the political agenda. However, it had been a long time since he had dominated the public debate to such an extent. The political calendar is no stranger to this: on September 11, the Swedes are called to the polls. Gold “Nuclear is a gratifying line of conflict between the opposition and the government”, notes Markus Wrake, director of the Swedish Energy Research Centre. It is also one of the issues on which the Conservatives, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Democrats of Sweden (extreme right) – who hope to govern together after the elections – can present a united front.
The context also has a lot to do with it. While electricity prices have stagnated at historically low levels in recent years, they reached record highs at the end of 2021. However, the country is not short of electricity. The proof: between June and December 2021, its exports exceeded its imports every day, except two. The rise in prices is a consequence of this: “Because Sweden exports its electricity to Germany in particular, where the tariffs are high, this affects the prices here”, explains Markus Wrake.
Four pricing zones
This is particularly obvious for the southern half of the country, where 90% of Swedes live and where consumers saw their bills double or even triple in December, while the rise in prices was barely felt in the north. In question: the division of the country into four distinct pricing zones, since 2011. Because there are bottlenecks in the network, preventing the transfer of as much electricity as necessary from one region to another, the Operator Svenska kraftnät hoped to encourage investment in the southern half of the country, by letting prices fluctuate.
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