Energimyndigheten ER 2026-20 Uppdatering Långsiktiga Scenarier (2026)

Full citation: Statens energimyndighet. Uppdatering av långsiktiga scenarier — En sammanställning av resultat och känslighetsanalys samt konsultrapport om tillgång och efterfrågan på bio- och elektrobränslen. ER 2026:20. Eskilstuna: Energimyndigheten, June 2026. ISSN 1403-1892, ISBN (pdf) 978-91-7993-295-5.

Summary

A mid-cycle update to Energimyndigheten’s official long-term energy-system scenarios, refreshing key assumptions and trends identified in autumn 2025 against the spring-2025 baseline (BP25, documented in the full scenario report ER 2025:13, Scenarier över Sveriges energisystem — the deeper analytical companion this update report explicitly defers to). It updates three scenarios — BAS, HETS, and NORM — and adds a sensitivity analysis on renewable-fuel import/export prices plus a consultant analysis of EU/global bio- and e-fuel supply-demand balance (the latter judged lower-relevance for this Nordic-flexibility-focused wiki and not covered in depth here).

The scenarios feed Naturvårdsverket’s climate work and various Energimyndighet mandates — they are a standard reference input for Swedish energy-system planning, including (via ER 2025:13) DSO-level Distribution Network Development Plan (DNDP) scenario work.

Key claims

Electricity demand and price trajectory

• Demand rises in all three scenarios, driven mainly by industrial electrification (new processes in steel/iron, CCS in cement/refining/chemicals) and, more broadly, transport electrification. NORM shows the steepest growth — only NORM reaches 350 TWh production/demand, matching BP25’s level.
• Prices rise sharply to 2030 in all scenarios, and land above BP25 — because onshore wind buildout has slowed relative to the 2025 baseline assumptions (recent investment slowdown reflected in the model), even though demand keeps climbing. Prices ease again after 2030–2035 as onshore wind buildout accelerates and new nuclear capacity (assumed to begin arriving from 2035, unlike BP25 where new nuclear was purely an endogenous model outcome) enters the system. Nuclear cost assumptions were also revised up ~10% to better match the Finansiering och riskdelning vid investeringar i ny kärnkraft (Fi 2023:F) inquiry’s cost estimates.
• Only NORM justifies investment in offshore wind and additional new nuclear (beyond the nuclear already assumed from 2035) — and only after 2055 for the additional nuclear. NORM has the highest electricity prices of the three scenarios overall, due to its strong demand growth; HETS runs above BAS because higher EU ETS carbon prices push up continental (and thus Swedish) power prices.

District heating under growing biomass competition

• District heating’s role shrinks across all scenarios as biofuel prices rise (making biomass feedstock more valuable for fuel production than for heat) and heat pumps/energy efficiency become more competitive — but the shrinkage is smaller than in BP25, because biofuel prices are not assumed to rise as steeply in this update.
• As biomass competition intensifies, combustion-free district heating (waste heat, heat pumps) becomes increasingly important — potentially up to half of district heating production by 2060.
• District heating’s marginal cost sensitivity to biofuel prices declines over time as biofuels shrink in the district-heating fuel mix; district heating CO2 emissions turn negative from 2035–2045 (scenario-dependent) via bioCCS and improved circular plastic recovery from waste.

Sensitivity analysis: renewable-fuel import/export prices

• In the core scenarios, renewable-fuel import/export prices are pegged to a rising oil price, making domestic renewable-fuel production economical and making Sweden a net exporter of renewable fuels in all three scenarios.
• The sensitivity analysis decouples this link and tests 8 alternative (generally lower) import/export price levels for renewable liquid/gaseous fuels (biofuels and e-fuels used mainly in transport, plus oil/fat feedstock imports).
• At low import prices, Sweden flips from net exporter to net importer of renewable fuels — which reduces competition for domestic biomass and improves conditions for district heating and CHP. This directly illustrates that renewable-fuel trade prices, not just domestic biomass availability, are a structural bottleneck determining district heating’s competitiveness.
• Underlying strategic bottlenecks for e-fuel production identified: biogenic CO2, fossil-free electricity, and bio-based feedstock availability — demand for e-fuels and renewable fuels is growing faster than production capacity buildout, and Sweden’s natural-resource advantages compete against a global market where price levels, economies of scale, and policy instruments determine competitiveness.

Relevance to the wiki

• Distribution Network Development Plan — DNDP Pillar 1 scenario development already draws on Energimyndigheten’s national long-term scenarios (ER 2025:13 / BP25); this update revises the underlying demand-growth and price-trajectory assumptions DSOs would use as inputs, particularly the higher near-term (to-2030) price trajectory and the later, more front-loaded new-nuclear assumption.
• District-heating squeeze under biomass competition is relevant to any future wiki content on heat pump electrification and its knock-on effect on distribution-grid peak demand (heat pumps substituting for district heating shift load onto the electricity grid) — flagged as a data gap below rather than built out now.
• The NORM-only case for offshore wind and additional new nuclear is a useful high-demand-scenario reference point for Flexibility Need Assessment and DNDP high-growth planning scenarios.

Data gaps

• This report does not quantify the DSO-level (distribution-grid) load implications of the district-heating-to-heat-pump shift it describes — that translation from national energy-system scenario to distribution-grid peak-demand impact is not covered here and would need a dedicated DSO-facing source.
• Section 3 (EU-wide biomass/e-fuel supply-demand balance) was only skimmed, given lower relevance to this wiki’s Nordic/Sweden-flexibility focus — revisit if a future source requires the EU biomass-supply detail.
• The full underlying scenario report, ER 2025:13 (Scenarier över Sveriges energisystem), is referenced repeatedly here but has not itself been ingested as a separate source page — it is the deeper analytical reference this update summarizes and could be worth ingesting directly if DNDP/scenario work needs more granularity than this update report provides.