Sweden Blocks Baltic Sea Wind Farms Over Defense Concerns

STOCKHOLM, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Sweden has rejected applications to build 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea due to defense concerns, while giving the go-ahead to one on its west coast, the government said on Monday.

Defense Minister Pal Jonson told a press conference that building wind farms in the Baltic Sea would pose defense risks, not least by making it harder to detect and shoot down missiles using Sweden’s Patriot batteries in case of a conflict.

Jonson said Baltic wind farms could halve the time Sweden had to react to a missile attack to just one minute. Sweden’s capital is just 500 kilometers (311 miles) from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

“In the current, very serious international security climate with Sweden where it is and with Kaliningrad where it is … the Swedish armed forces judge it would bring unacceptable risks and the government also has that view,” Jonson told reporters.

The decision raises questions over how Sweden can meet its plans to double annual electricity production to around 300 terawatt-hours (TWh) over the next two decades.

Demand is expected to soar as industry and the transport sector phase out using fossil fuels. Plans for “green” production of steel, batteries and fertilizers in the Arctic north also depend on plentiful cheap, clean electricity.

The government’s plan is to build out nuclear power. It aims to have an additional 2,500 megawatts of nuclear power by 2035 and 10 new reactors a decade later, but critics say demand is expected to rise faster than new reactors can be built.

The government did give the go-ahead on Monday to the Poseidon wind farm off the west coast, which should produce around 5.5 TWh of electricity a year, if it is built.

State-owned utility Vattenfall said in September it was halting development of its planned Kriegers Flak project – also off the west coast – after the government scrapped subsidies for coupling offshore wind to the electricity grid.

Poseidon is the third offshore wind project to get the green light since the government took power in 2022. A further 10 applications are still waiting for a government decision.

Wind power, almost exclusively land-based, accounted for 21% of Sweden’s electricity generation in 2023. Hydro power provides around 40% and nuclear 29%.

(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Anna Ringstrom and Mark Potter)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024.

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