Anslutningsplikt

The statutory connection obligation: a Swedish grid company’s legal duty to connect a customer’s facility to its network on request. Anslutningsplikt (also anslutningsskyldighet) is the baseline duty that conditional and flexible connection products modify. It is the legal reason a DSO — or even Svenska kraftnät at transmission level — cannot simply refuse a connection when the grid is congested, and therefore a central driver of Congestion Management and Flexibility needs.

Legal basis

The obligation is grounded in the Swedish Electricity Act (ellagen, 1997:857; from 1 January 2027 the new Elmarknadslagen). Key provisions:

• 4 kap. 1 § — the connecting grid company must connect a facility within its area on reasonable terms; refusal requires särskilda skäl (special reasons).
• 4 kap. 2 § — a company may refer an application to a lower grid level where there are special reasons (e.g. connection at higher voltage would be inefficient or unsafe under 3 kap. 1 §).
• 4 kap. 3 § — an applicant needs only the local grid’s consent before applying at regional or transmission level; the regional grid’s consent is not required.

A consequence of this hierarchy is that Svenska kraftnät’s transmission grid can become obligated to connect a customer who skipped the regional grid entirely. Ei recommends — but cannot require — that applicants apply at the lowest suitable voltage level and proceed upward (Ei2025:05). Connection prövning and concession assessment (nätkoncessionsprövning) are legally separate parallel processes. See Distribution System Operator › Referral to lower grid level (Ei2025:05).

The two-year presumptive maximum

Practice treats roughly two years as the presumptive outer limit for a reasonable connection time. In a congested grid this is increasingly unrealistic, and the gap between the legal presumption and operational reality is what Ei’s supervisory work has set out to measure.

Ei PM2026:05 reviewed how six regional DSOs and Svk fulfilled the obligation in 2023–2024: offer times of 406–1,620 days and completion times of 3–8+ years, with 60% of Svk’s connections exceeding both the two-year limit and the customer’s own deadline. The companion local-grid review is PM2025:01.

Relationship to conditional and flexible connections

Anslutningsplikt is the default — connection on firm, unconditional terms. The instruments that relax it are:

• Villkorade Avtal (conditional connection agreements) — connection granted on the condition that the customer accepts curtailment under defined circumstances, deferring or avoiding reinforcement.
• Flexible Connection Agreements — capacity-limited or time-limited connection, trading firmness for speed.

Ei’s PM2026:05 found these essentially unused at regional/transmission level: the rules are perceived as unclear and no company had a method to evaluate non-reinforcement alternatives against the obligation. This is a recurring theme — the connection obligation is firm and well understood, while the tools to satisfy it flexibly remain under-operationalised. The same dynamic underlies the luftbokning (speculative capacity reservation) and faktisk belastning doctrines analysed in Source - Ei R2024-14 Outnyttjad Kapacitet (2024).

Why it matters for flexibility

Because the grid company must connect on request, the binding question becomes how to honour the obligation when capacity is scarce. Flexibility — local markets, conditional connections, Dynamic Line Rating — is the means of meeting anslutningsplikt without (or before) building new wires. The strength of the obligation is precisely what makes flexibility a regulatory necessity rather than an optional efficiency.

Data gaps

• Whether Ei will move from supervision to binding rule clarification on connection-time limits — PM2026:05 signals “further supervisory work and possible rule clarification” but sets no date
• How the obligation is restated in the new Elmarknadslagen (in force 1 January 2027) versus the 1997 ellagen text
• Volume of connections actually granted on conditional/flexible terms at regional/transmission level (PM2026:05 found the tools essentially unused — a baseline of ~0)