In March there was an incident limiting transmission capacity from Norway to Sweden. The effect was a dramatic increase in electricity prices in Southern Sweden and Finland. Since a month back the price of electricity in the same zones have again reached very high levels, but now for the reason of limited local electricity production in these areas, combined with additional limitations on transmission between the areas mentioned and areas with ample availability of production capacity, i.e. Norway and Northern Sweden. Electricity is available but not where it is needed.
Because of this situation, Linde is again forced to introduce a temporary surcharge for the duration of 2020 or at least until the situation has changed to a more normal situation. The current situation is unfortunately a structural one, linked to decommissioning and temporary maintenance stops of nuclear power in Southern Sweden and the limitations in transmission capacity between Northern and Southern Sweden. This severe situation has lately been addressed in many newspaper articles and is an obvious challenge or even threat to current operations as well as to continued development of the energy-intensive industries and their increased use of electricity as part of a long term sustainability agenda.