Energimyndigheten ER 2025-20 Flexibilitet Målgruppsanpassad Information (2025)

Document: ER 2025:20, Flexibilitet inom elsystemet — Målgruppsanpassad information och potentialbedömningar. Energimyndigheten (Swedish Energy Agency). Published May 2025. Interim report (delredovisning) on government assignment “att förbättra flexibiliteten i elsystemet” (regeringsbeslut 2024-06-27, KN2024/01432) — covers two of the assignment’s five sub-tasks: (1) target-group-adapted information dissemination, (2) mapping flexibility potential among electricity producers and industry. 78 pages.

Relationship to Source - Energimyndigheten ER 2025-35 Förbättra Flexibiliteten (2025): ER 2025:35 is the assignment’s final report (November 2025), covering the other three sub-tasks (agency-role information outreach refresh, communication protocols, robustness/random-startup-delay) — it does not repeat this report’s producer-regulability (ch. 4) or industry-potential (ch. 5) content, which remains this report’s unique contribution to the wiki. The two reports independently converge on the same fourth flexibility category (this report: flexibilitet för energiberedskap; ER 2025:35/FlexAbility: beredskapsflexibilitet) — see Flexibility › Four-category flexibility taxonomy.

Target-group information strategy (ch. 3)

A consultant target-group analysis (CIT Renergy, based on SNI codes plus company-type/usage-pattern judgement) grouped Swedish businesses into manufacturing (verkstadsindustri, livsmedelsindustri, sågverk, processindustri), service (fastighetsägare, restaurang/storkök, livsmedelshandel, badhus/ishallar, bygg, transport, vatten/avlopp, övrig, offentlig), and three cross-branch groups (elfordonsladdning, stationära batterilager, stora lagerlokaler, installation/drift/underhåll), each rated on kunskapsbehov (knowledge need) × potential → priority (hög/medel/låg).

Highest priority (per Table 6’s own Prioritet rating — not uniformly “high knowledge need AND high potential” in every case): aktörer med elfordonsladdning (incl. arbetsmaskiner) and aktörer med stora lagerlokaler score hög on both knowledge need and potential; verkstadsindustri scores hög priority despite only medel potential (justified by relevance across the whole sector), and offentlig verksamhet scores hög priority despite låg potential (justified by its role as a föregångare/pathfinder) — livsmedelsindustri and fastighetsägare are also rated hög priority (medel knowledge need, hög potential). Explicitly excluded from the analysis: large-scale electricity producers and elintensiv industri (already knowledgeable, not information-barrier-limited) and households (Ei already runs a dedicated household information effort, see Source - Energimyndigheten ER 2025-35 Förbättra Flexibiliteten (2025) ch. 2). Elproducenter generally judged not information-barrier-limited either, except småskalig solkraft specifically.

Energimyndigheten’s own assessment: no large public information campaign is planned (past experience judged a single campaign as poor fit for an area needing continuous updating); instead digital, continuously-maintained material integrated into existing channels (energimyndigheten.se, energiochklimatradgivningen.se, kommunal energi- och klimatrådgivning, BeBo/BeLok/Besmå/Relivs sector networks) is the chosen approach.

Generation-side regulability (ch. 4)

Per-technology detail on up/down-regulation potential, not previously in the wiki at this depth:

• Vattenkraft: 16.4 GW installed, ~13–14 GW practically dispatchable, floor ~2 GW. Flexibility concentrated in ~255 “klass 1” plants, which contributed >98% of the regulation contribution across 365-day/28-day/1-day timescales (2009–2014 data). Ramp rate: fleet-wide up to 3 GW/h (~50 MW/min average), individual plants much higher. Effect-boost potential (uprating existing plants, not new dams — the protected nationalälvar rule out major expansion): Sweco (2016) ~3–4 GW technical potential, AFRY (2024) ~1.3 GW realisable by 2035; Energimyndigheten’s own scenario analysis models +1.9 GW to 18.2 GW by 2035. Separate pumped-hydro feasibility studies underway (SENS, Mine Storage — old mines; Fortum — three sites) — economics dominated by high upfront capital cost and site-dependent fall height, not expected to see major cost reduction (mature tech).
• Kärnkraft: 6 reactors, ~6.9 GW, all BWR/PWR built 1970s–80s, run as baseload. Technically capable of load-following (used periodically in Sweden in the 80s/90s; still practised in France/Germany) — regulated ramp rates under SvKFS 2005:2: PWR must handle 5%/min, BWR 10%/min, both in the 60–90% of rated-power range — implying a fleet-wide ~500 MW/min ramp capability if fully utilised. Constraining factors: PCI (pellet-cladding interaction), xenon poisoning, minimum load level (as low as ~20% for fresh fuel, rising to >80% for highly burnt fuel), and four cost categories (capital, O&M, fuel-economics, personnel) that all rise with flexible operation. No new nuclear is modelled before 2035; theoretical upregulation potential at an assumed 65% minimum-load level: 2.4 GW (technical only, not economic).
• Solkraft: 4.8 GW installed end of 2024 (over 40,000 new connections in 2024 alone, ~875 MW), growth slowing after announced 2026 removal of the household tax deduction (skattereduktion) and reduced green-tech tax deduction. 58% of installed effect is in plants <20 kW. Very low regulation-down incentive (near-zero marginal cost; economically rational only near/below zero spot price) — Jan 2025: only 30 MW prequalified on FCR-D down, <10 MW on FCR-D up. Scenario range for 2035: 9.0–10.1 GW.
• Vindkraft: >40 TWh generated in 2024 (~25% of Swedish electricity). Third-largest prequalified volume on Svk’s balancing markets after hydro and storage (Jan 2025: FCR-D down 390 MW, aFRR down 50 MW, mFRR up 370 MW, mFRR down 910 MW). Scenario range for 2035: 25–34 GW (new capacity 8.0–17.7 GW). Theoretical up-regulation at an assumed 5% reglerbar-kapacitet rate: 0.5–1 GW, but “helt beroende på ekonomiska förutsättningar.”
• Kraftvärme: ~11% of Swedish electricity (2022), production tied to heat demand (peaks in winter, when flexibility is least available because heat demand is maxed). Prequalified on Svk reserves (all värmekraft, Jan 2025): 50 MW FCR-N, 50 MW FCR-D up/down, 220 MW mFRR up, 240 MW mFRR down. Structural headwind: rising/competitive biomass prices (EU fossil-fuel-substitute demand bidding up biomass) squeeze profitability and can create a perverse incentive to conserve fuel for heat rather than run flexible peak-price electricity generation. Capacity is expected to decline, not grow, across all of Energimyndigheten’s scenarios.
• Gasturbiner: ~20 units, 1.3 GW, used in Svk’s överbelastningshantering (see Svk Transmission Grid Planning › Kapacitetsåtgärder — joint TSO-DSO connection bridge concept for the related but distinct kapacitetsåtgärder concept). Low capital cost, high running cost (fossil-fuelled today; biogas/green-hydrogen transition in progress) — used only a handful of hours/year. Scenario buildout to 2035: 5.5–6.8 GW, modelled as toppload-only, not run in normal weather years.
• Batterier (as an add-on to any generation type): ~800 MW prequalified across FFR/FCR/aFRR/mFRR at end 2024/start 2025. Scenario: 10 GWh energy-storage capacity by 2035 (roughly one intraday-market-volume-day’s worth spread over ten hours). C-rate typically 0.5–2 (0.5–2h duration at rated power) — suited to short interventions.

Aggregate: a theoretical additional 6–10 GW of flexibility potential from new generation capacity buildout by 2035 (out of 20–32 GW total new capacity across Energimyndigheten’s long-term scenarios), conditional on nuclear reinvesting in load-following capability at a 65% minimum-load assumption.

Industrial flexibility potential (ch. 5)

Interview study: 24 large industrial electricity users, autumn 2024, 30–60 minute qualitative interviews with energy managers — run jointly with Power Circle’s parallel FlexAbility research project (funded separately by Energimyndigheten) to reduce duplicate burden on the same companies; see Source - FlexAbility Delrapport 1 (2025) for that project’s own (higher-level, single-point-estimate) industry potential number.

Headline finding: industry could flex roughly 5–15% of its electricity use near-term without major investment — but almost none of that potential is currently used to relieve grid capacity shortage (nätkapacitetsbrist). Only 1 of 24 had serious plans to join a local flexibility market. Being flexible always carries a cost to industry — either lost production or built-in overcapacity somewhere in the process.

Per-branch detail:

• Papper/massa (38% of industrial electricity use, ~17 TWh electricity of 44 TWh total industrial electricity): already substantially flexible and market-exposed — several firms trade both production and consumption bids on day-ahead/intraday.
• Järn/stål (~7 TWh electricity of 20 TWh total): Jernkontoret’s own 2020 assessment found ~15% of subscribed effect (900 MW) flexible, of which >75% is already used flexibly based on utilisation/price/fuel availability — but not for grid-capacity relief specifically. ~1,200 MW of new electrolyser capacity planned near-term (direct-reduction steel) in addition to 20 MW already running, raising both electricity use and theoretical future flex potential.
• Verkstadsindustri (dominated by micro/small firms — 83% of registered companies have 1–4 employees): not currently flexible; interviewed firms estimate 10–15% potential via production planning/shifting, contingent on buffer/inventory capacity for intermediate products.
• Kemiindustri: low potential — continuous processes, costly to halt, heterogeneous across the sector; poorly-designed flexibility could paradoxically increase CO2 emissions (e.g. gas flaring).
• Drivmedelsindustri (~1 TWh electricity, continuous-drift refineries): very low near-term potential; longer-term potential tied to e-fuel/advanced-biofuel production is possible but graded “osäker.”
• Trävaruindustri/sågverk (RISE’s parallel SågFlex project): drying-fan electricity use (~500 GWh/år) is the single largest identified flex opportunity, suited especially to balancing-type (short-duration) flexibility.

Hydrogen — a corrective finding: despite earlier literature (Power Circle 2022) flagging hydrogen electrolysis as potentially the single largest industrial flex source (1,233 MW for Hybrit alone by 2045), Sweco’s 2023/2024 hydrogen-project survey (22 then 16 interviews, run for Energimyndigheten ahead of Eurostat hydrogen-statistics reporting requirements) found almost no current or planned hydrogen project is actually designed for flexibility: most integrated processes target a minimum 1–2 hour hydrogen buffer only (storage is expensive); of those using hydrogen as process feedstock rather than energy, most e-fuel projects that originally planned flexible electrolyser operation have abandoned that plan, prioritising electrolyser cost-recovery instead. Modelling (NEPP project) suggests hydrogen flexibility may only start entering the system around 2035, first on the west coast.

Quantified 2030 potential (Table 7, Energimyndigheten + Profu synthesis, MW, by merged branch group — the report deliberately does not name which numbered branch group is which industry, “för att inte skriva ut vilken bransch som är vilken”, so the groups below are cited only by their report-assigned numbers, not by inferred industry names):

(Cell alignment verified by cross-checking each column against the Summa row’s arithmetic — the per-row values above are the corrected reading; an earlier draft of this table had every row’s columns shifted by one position relative to the header.) The mean-effect potential represents roughly symmetric up/down capability at average industrial load; the 95th-percentile figure represents down-regulation capability when industry is running near peak effect; the theoretical figure is the reference maximum if industry swung fully between its 5th and 95th percentile load.

Other findings

• Duration/uthållighet: industrial flexibility duration ranges from an hour to a full day depending on process; ramp rates and advance-notice requirements vary widely by branch/plant/equipment and were flagged as needing further study.
• Villkorade avtal — see Villkorade Avtal › When are villkorade avtal appropriate? (industry workshop evidence) for the specific finding folded in there (2 of 24 firms have such agreements; industry fears short-notice curtailment).
• Capacity-mechanism context (as of report date, spring 2025 — since superseded, kept for historical framing only): Karlshamnsverket’s 562 MW effektreserv contract expired 2025-03-15; a new capacity-mechanism regulation including demand flexibility was proposed for entry into force 2025-05-01. ACER submitted its revised NC DR proposal to the European Commission 2025-03-07.
• Kapacitetsåtgärder precursor note: as of the report’s writing (Feb–Mar 2025), Svk and Vattenfall Eldistribution were running supplier dialogue for a west-coast (Stenungsund/NW Göteborg) kapacitetsåtgärder procurement — see Svk Transmission Grid Planning › Kapacitetsåtgärder — joint TSO-DSO connection bridge concept for how that pilot concluded (March 2026, before procurement) once forecasted demand shifted.
• New transmission-flexibility products: as of report date, Energiföretagen members had submitted new products for “flexibilitet för överföring” to Ei for approval, not yet public — the precursor to what is now the published LFM-h/p/e standard product set (see LFM Standard Product Design — Model A vs B Recommendations for DSOs and related SWITCH-context pages).

Relevance to wiki