The Swedish Government has rejected the application to build the new 700 MW Hansa PowerBridge subsea power interconnection project between Sweden and Germany. The Swedish Ministry of Energy justified this decision by saying the German market is currently not efficient enough and a connection would risk leading to higher prices and a more unstable electricity market in southern Sweden, which has a large deficit in electricity production.
The grid operators Svenska Kraftnat and 50Hertz had originally aimed for the project to allow more renewable power to be sent from the Nordics to Germany, while imports from Germany would contribute to a more secure electricity supply in southern Sweden. Germany is a single power market zone, with a unified wholesale price, which can create congestion on its grid. Sweden on the other hand is divided into four power price zones. The project was originally supposed to run for 300 km between Hurva (Sweden) and Güstrow (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany) and be completed in the early 2030s.