Svk Månadsrapporter aFRR 2025

Svenska kraftnät’s monthly aFRR capacity-market reports for 2025: eight reports (March, April, May, June–August combined, September, October, November, December). Svk has published them since April 2025 (the first covers March). They describe the common Nordic aFRR capacity market, in which every bidding zone of the Nordic synchronous area takes part, with monthly mean prices per Swedish zone (plus NO1 and FI, and DK2 in an appendix), hourly prices, the Swedish share of the requirement met by Swedish bids, and price-driving factors. The data basis the reports state is Energinet, NUCS and Nord Pool; all means are straight monthly means. The reports’ text was read in full; most figures are in charts, and those below are the figures the text states.

How the market works (background section in each report)

• aFRR is procured for all hours on the daily capacity market for the next day (D-1), sized from Nordic frequency-quality targets; all called capacity is available for pro-rata activation through a central control signal.
• Bids are selected to meet each zone’s volume requirement at the lowest social cost; no zone has a minimum volume that must be procured locally. Where transmission capacity is available it can be reserved across borders to exchange balancing capacity, at a reservation cost (cross-zonal capacity cost) set in the clearing algorithm.
• Hence prices in SE3 and SE4 are often set by southern Norway (NO1, NO2, NO5) and DK2, and prices in SE1 and SE2 by Finland and northern Norway; Sweden is a large net importer of aFRR capacity.

Monthly means per zone (EUR/MW, as stated by Svk)

Up prices fell through the year in every zone (SE1 from 21.8 to 5.7 between March and December); down prices followed a seasonal path, highest in June and falling to autumn, as Svk expected.

How much of the requirement Sweden supplies itself

Share of the Swedish requirement met by calls on Swedish bids (Svk’s figure):

• The reports describe Sweden as a net importer of aFRR capacity in March, April, May and (for down) October; in August 2024 Sweden had called 103% of its own down requirement and was a net exporter. Norway supplied a large share of called volume (the majority in March), with Finland and DK2 growing at times.
• Svk’s reasons for the varying Swedish shares: more competitive Swedish bids in September; more competitive bids in Finland and southern Norway later in the year; from 11 August the possibility to import aFRR up from NO1 was reduced; Finland was the largest net exporter of aFRR up in November and December, helped by higher transmission capacity from Finland to SE1 from 1 November after limits through much of October, and higher NO1→SE3 capacity in December.
• No aFRR up was called in SE3 or SE4 during April and the summer; DK2 bids set the price there.

Requirement, prices and peaks

• In March the Nordic aFRR volume requirement was raised temporarily to secure a safe transition to the new balancing model with mFRR EAM and then stepped down through March and April; it was lowered again in May and, for aFRR up only, on 1 July. The reports link lower prices to the lower requirement.
• Hourly peaks for up in SE3/SE4 arise when the reservation cost for reserving capacity southward is high, so that more expensive southern bids are called even when northern bids are cheaper: 17 April hour 20, 170 EUR/MW; 27 May hour 21, 144.74 (SE4); 3 June hour 22, 137.76 (SE4; SE3→SE4 reservation cost 60); 10 September hour 19–20, 150.00 (SE2→SE3 reservation cost 256.08, import from NO1 204.06); 15 October hour 18, 241.28 (SE2→SE3 reservation cost 516.56, NO1 308.34); 27 November hour 15, 148.96 (SE4); 10 December hour 15, 26.04. In several of these hours no volume was called in SE3 or SE4 at all.
• Hourly peaks for down: 26 April 74; 14 May 52.3; 2 June 83.48; 16 August 67.60 (all zones except NO5); 4 September 46.60; 6 November 40.0; 19 December 28.0. They coincide with low transmission capacity or high reservation costs for imports, or low spot prices and low production (high cost of staying available for down-regulation).
• Seasonality and drivers: down prices normally rise in the spring flood when hydro (the dominant resource) has less flexibility; the expected rise in April and May did not appear in 2025. There is a positive correlation between spot price and aFRR up and between hydro production and aFRR up; a negative correlation between production level and aFRR down. Svk also names spot price, production levels and bid structure (block and indivisible bids) as drivers.
• Intraday profile: up prices follow the spot profile with higher prices in morning and evening; down prices are highest around midday and at night, with November and December as exceptions where morning and evening prices were higher.

Reading the reports with care

• Check against the wiki’s series: the zone means Svk states for March–May and September–December agree with the wiki’s monthly aFRR series built from Energinet’s dataset (44 zone-month values within 0.22 EUR/MW; the only gap is Svk’s rounded “about 18” for SE1 in May), which confirms the Energinet data is what Svk uses (Source - Energinet aFRR Capacity Market Data (2026)).
• One apparent error: the March report gives SE4 aFRR down as 27.4 EUR/MW, but Energinet’s data gives 29.4, equal to SE3; Svk notes down prices are often the same in all Swedish zones. Unresolved, and probably a typo.
• The October report dates the month’s highest down price “4 September”, an evident slip for October.
• The “Jun–Aug” summary figures describe August (they match August in the series) although the text introduces them for the period.

Relevance to wiki topics

• Swedish Balancing Market Prices and Volumes — the aFRR series and the Swedish-share story behind it
• Balancing Markets — aFRR product and the Nordic capacity market; Sweden as a net importer
• Source - Energinet aFRR Capacity Market Data (2026) — the dataset these reports are built on
• Nordic Battery Revenue Trends 2023–2026 — aFRR capacity prices in the Nordic reserve-price comparison