As Sweden’s electricity grid faces increasing strain from electrification and fluctuating renewable energy production, a debate is emerging over the best path forward.This exchange examines the potential of “flexibility markets” – systems that incentivize consumers to adjust their energy usage – as a faster and more cost-effective option to conventional grid expansion, with bitvis CEO Gustav Kristiansson building on arguments made by Greenely CEO Tanmoy Bari regarding structural obstacles hindering their development.
DEBATT
REPLIK. Flexibility in electricity usage is one of the few tools that can release capacity faster than new infrastructure, writes Gustav Kristiansson.
This is a debate article. The opinions expressed are the author’s own.
Greenely CEO Tanmoy Bari is correct in his debate article in Ny Teknik: “Flex markets have great potential – but Sweden is lagging behind.”
Sweden is facing a growing capacity problem as grid expansion is expensive and time-consuming. Electrification continues apace, variations in production and consumption are increasing, and peak demand is becoming more critical than annual energy usage. This situation is prompting a search for solutions that can quickly address infrastructure limitations.
In this environment, flexibility is one of the few tools available to unlock capacity more quickly than building new infrastructure. However, as Bari points out, the obstacles in Sweden are largely structural. Unclear regulations are causing many utility companies to hesitate about what they are allowed to do, hindering the development of local flex markets.
We want to build on Bari’s argument and highlight what is needed in practice for local flexibility to function on a larger scale.
We see that the most pressing bottlenecks often relate to authority, risk, and working methods within utility companies, rather than a lack of a ready-made standard.
We believe a mandatory review process would be helpful, as it would clearly signal that flexibility is both important and permissible. In such a review, utility companies should evaluate flexibility options before deciding on new infrastructure. However, a mandatory review is not enough on its own. A clear chain of evidence is also needed.
Utility companies must be able to trust that flexibility will actually deliver when demand is at its highest. Therefore, it needs to be measurable, controllable, and trackable over time. Otherwise, flexibility risks becoming merely a theoretical option, rather than a viable alternative that can underpin multi-billion dollar investment decisions.
Regarding Bari’s desire for a national standard, we believe that would certainly be helpful, but we don’t see it as the biggest obstacle right now. New markets are often fragmented at the beginning, both in terms of products and pricing models, and with time and volume, they tend to move towards more common market structures.
The same applies to the value of flexibility. This becomes clearer when utility companies begin to compare flexibility with physical expansion, making it easier to price both capacity and quality.
What Bari, and we, are pointing out is not an argument against flex markets, but quite the opposite. Flexibility must be usable in practice. The difference is that we see the most pressing bottlenecks often relating to authority, risk, and working methods within utility companies, rather than a lack of a ready-made standard.
This means that flex markets will truly be effective when flexibility can be relied upon and actually planned for. To achieve this, utility companies need both confidence that resources will deliver predictably when the system is under the most stress, and a chain of evidence that makes delivery measurable, verifiable, and trackable over time.
Therefore, Sweden needs flex markets with clear rules and a review process that makes flexibility a real alternative in network planning, so that utility companies actually dare to choose flexibility over costly new grid expansion.
Gustav Kristiansson, CEO Bitvis
