Energimyndigheten ER 2026:23 Fjärr- och Kraftvärmens Roll (2026)

Energimyndigheten’s report ER 2026:23 Fjärrvärmens och kraftvärmens roll i ett föränderligt energisystem, its answer to the government assignment of August 2025 (KN2025/01566) to propose measures that strengthen district heating and CHP, published on 1 Oct 2026 with Source - Energimyndigheten ER 2026-22 Stärkt Leveranssäkerhet Fjärrvärme (2026). The same page also holds the agency’s news item of 1 Oct 2026 and the reaction from Energiföretagen Sverige (5 Oct 2026), which is industry framing; facts below come from the agency documents.

Reading scope: the summary and proposals table (pp. 6-11), proposals 2.2.3 and 2.2.4, the system-benefit method in the main text, and the electricity-tax modelling in the annex were read. The 310 pages also hold chapters on forest fuels, fossil emissions from waste-based district heating, buildings’ energy performance and four supporting annexes, which were not read in full.

Key findings

• A package of twelve main proposals of mixed maturity: some the agency can carry out itself, others are for the government to prepare, investigate or review. The subjects are the electricity-system value of district heating in municipal and regional energy planning, robustness and preparedness, a temporary electricity-tax cut, support and risk-sharing instruments for strategic investments, forest-fuel supply chains (knowledge, research, market information, EU rules, targeted measures), buildings’ energy-performance rules, emission factors for electricity and district heating, and how emissions from waste-based district heating are reported (the waste producer should carry fossil waste emissions). The twelve count is the one used by Energiföretagen; the summary table has twelve areas.
• Electricity-system value. A falling use of district heating and lower CHP output can raise peak electricity demand and reduce local dispatchable generation, mainly in cold winter periods, and so increase grid reinforcement needs. The effect depends on the local system. Updated long-term scenarios show a smaller decline in district heating and CHP than those the analysis started from.
• Method. The analysis translates a change in heat load into extra electricity use, extra peak power and an indicative grid cost. Example values from the supporting report, explicitly not general rules: replacing 1 GWh of district heating with heat pumps (annual COP about 3.4, grid losses included) adds about 0.30 GWh of electricity; in the Stockholm example (design winter temperature, COP about 2.7) converting 1 MW away from district heating adds about 0.38 MW of peak demand, an indicative value of about SEK 6 million, from a roughly linear relation of about SEK 15-16 million per MW of maximum transferred power in the studied local grids (the annex gives 15.9 million per MW, with a range of 7.9-31.2 million per MW across companies transferring more than 20 MW). The agency proposes to document and maintain the method as planning support for municipalities, regions, grid companies and district-heating companies; it is not meant to replace local grid analysis or underpin a general compensation model.
• Proposal 2.2.3: a time-limited, limited cut in the energy tax on electricity used in heat pumps and electric boilers for district-heating production is put forward for the government to prepare. Large heat pumps and electric boilers can be used when prices and system load are low and curtailed when the system is strained, and they can free biofuel for critical periods. The modelling shows a temporary cut mainly shifts the production mix (less bio and fossil fuel, more heat pump and boiler output), with no clear effect on total district-heating demand or CHP output in the case analysed; a cut over a longer period gives somewhat higher district-heating demand. It is “not a general solution” to district heating’s competitiveness. No legal text, final tax level or technical design is proposed, and there is no cost estimate. Open questions listed for the next stage include which plants are covered, level and duration, metering, EU state-aid compatibility, public-finance effects, effects on grid load including capacity costs, CHP running hours and incentives for heat storage.
• Annex context for the tax figures. The modelling (TIMES-NORDIC, “Beslutad Policy” scenario) notes electricity used for district-heating production carried an energy tax of 44 öre/kWh excluding VAT in most of the country in 2025; a footnote states the tax was cut to 36 öre/kWh after the turn of 2025/2026. The modelled case lowers it to the EU minimum of 0.6 öre/kWh, temporarily for 2030-2040; applied over 2030-2060 it gives district-heating demand about 0.5-1 TWh higher. Profu’s hourly EPOD model, run on the 2024 system, indicates electricity-based district-heating output rising by about 1 TWh (rough estimate) at the minimum rate. These are model runs, not the proposal.
• Support instruments (2.2.4). The government is asked to review how existing support and risk-sharing instruments can be used or developed for strategic investments in heat storage, interconnections between district-heating systems and use of waste heat, starting from existing instruments.
• Robustness is assessed by function. CHP can contribute to island operation (ö-drift) or black start (dödnätsstart) where technical and organisational conditions allow, but these abilities are not available in every system; the agency therefore wants robustness, preparedness and security of supply judged function by function. Targets and requirements are dealt with in ER 2026:22.
• Figures not in the report. The district-heating electric-boiler figures used elsewhere in the wiki (about 1.2 GW of flexibility, about SEK 500 million a year) are Energiföretagen’s, from Source - Second Opinion Fjärrvärme Elpannor Flexibilitetsresurs (2026); neither appears in ER 2026:23.

Relevance to existing wiki topics

• Demand Response — district-heating electric boilers and the long-running tax argument: the cut is now an agency proposal for further preparation, not a decision
• Island Operation and Beredskapsflexibilitet — CHP’s conditional ö-drift and dödnätsstart capability, judged by function
• Source - Energimyndigheten ER 2026-20 Uppdatering Långsiktiga Scenarier (2026) — the agency’s updated long-term scenarios, presumably the ones this report refers to (the report does not give the ER number)