Sweden energy profile
Sweden — near-total decarbonisation, now reversing course on nuclear
93-98%
Carbon-free electricity (varies by year/method)
2045
Legally binding net-zero emissions target
6 → 10
Reactors: current fleet, plus 4 new ones planned
~2x
Projected electricity demand growth by mid-2040s
A 45-year round trip on nuclear policy
From a 1980 phase-out vote to funding new reactors
The phase-out era:
Following a 1980 national referendum held in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident in the United States, Sweden adopted an official policy of gradually phasing out nuclear power. Over the following decades that meant closing plants rather than replacing them at end of life — including both units at Barsebäck — shrinking the fleet from a historical peak of 12 reactors down to the 6 still running today, all built in the 1970s and 1980s. For over four decades, Sweden's default assumption was that nuclear's share of the grid would shrink toward zero over time.
Following a 1980 national referendum held in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident in the United States, Sweden adopted an official policy of gradually phasing out nuclear power. Over the following decades that meant closing plants rather than replacing them at end of life — including both units at Barsebäck — shrinking the fleet from a historical peak of 12 reactors down to the 6 still running today, all built in the 1970s and 1980s. For over four decades, Sweden's default assumption was that nuclear's share of the grid would shrink toward zero over time.
The reversal:
That assumption is now officially dead: the Swedish parliament has passed legislation to finance a new generation of reactors, targeting roughly 4 large-scale plants (about 5,000 MW combined) or an equivalent mix including small modular reactors, with half the new capacity targeted online by 2035. Energy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch framed the reversal around energy security and price stability as much as climate goals, and the timing lines up with a genuine capacity problem: Swedish electricity demand is projected to roughly double over the next two decades, driven heavily by industrial electrification, including Sweden's push toward fossil-free steel production.
That assumption is now officially dead: the Swedish parliament has passed legislation to finance a new generation of reactors, targeting roughly 4 large-scale plants (about 5,000 MW combined) or an equivalent mix including small modular reactors, with half the new capacity targeted online by 2035. Energy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch framed the reversal around energy security and price stability as much as climate goals, and the timing lines up with a genuine capacity problem: Swedish electricity demand is projected to roughly double over the next two decades, driven heavily by industrial electrification, including Sweden's push toward fossil-free steel production.
The other half of the system
District heating, biomass, and Europe's cleanest heat sector
A carbon tax that actually changed behaviour:
Sweden's electricity story gets most of the international attention, but its heating sector tells an equally striking decarbonisation story. A high carbon tax applied to heating fuels made fossil-based heating increasingly uneconomical over time, driving a sustained shift toward biomass and electricity for district heating — provided nationally by a network of more than 700 companies. The result: Sweden now has the highest share of renewable energy used for heating and cooling of any EU country, at roughly 69% as of 2022 Eurostat figures, well ahead of most of the bloc.
Sweden's electricity story gets most of the international attention, but its heating sector tells an equally striking decarbonisation story. A high carbon tax applied to heating fuels made fossil-based heating increasingly uneconomical over time, driving a sustained shift toward biomass and electricity for district heating — provided nationally by a network of more than 700 companies. The result: Sweden now has the highest share of renewable energy used for heating and cooling of any EU country, at roughly 69% as of 2022 Eurostat figures, well ahead of most of the bloc.
Wind's rapid rise, and what's left to solve:
Wind power has grown from a marginal contributor to roughly a fifth to a quarter of Swedish electricity generation, now running close behind nuclear's share and helping the grid stay reliable (99.99% per Business Sweden figures) even as the older nuclear fleet ages. The genuinely unresolved part of Sweden's energy transition is transport, which — unlike electricity and heating — remains majority powered by fossil fuels, particularly aviation and road transport, and is the sector analysts flag as the biggest remaining obstacle to the 2045 net-zero target despite Sweden's electricity and heating sectors already being near-fully decarbonised.
Wind power has grown from a marginal contributor to roughly a fifth to a quarter of Swedish electricity generation, now running close behind nuclear's share and helping the grid stay reliable (99.99% per Business Sweden figures) even as the older nuclear fleet ages. The genuinely unresolved part of Sweden's energy transition is transport, which — unlike electricity and heating — remains majority powered by fossil fuels, particularly aviation and road transport, and is the sector analysts flag as the biggest remaining obstacle to the 2045 net-zero target despite Sweden's electricity and heating sectors already being near-fully decarbonised.
Questions
Questions about Swedish energy
Why did Sweden reverse a 45-year-old policy of phasing out nuclear power?
Two things changed that made the old phase-out logic harder to defend: the scale of future electricity demand, and how good Sweden's existing low-carbon grid already looks in hindsight. When Sweden voted to phase out nuclear in 1980, the assumption was that other sources — mainly more hydropower and, eventually, wind — could fill the gap as reactors retired, and for decades that mostly worked, since Sweden already had a strong hydro base to lean on. But Swedish electricity demand is now projected to roughly double over the next two decades, driven by industrial electrification (fossil-free steel production is a particularly electricity-hungry example) and broader efforts to decarbonise transport and heavy industry. Hydropower is already near its maximum sustainable capacity in Sweden — there isn't much room to simply build more dams — and while wind has grown quickly, it's intermittent in a way that pure demand growth on this scale makes harder to fully cover without either massive storage buildout or a reliable baseload alongside it. Against that backdrop, and with energy security concerns sharpened by the broader European situation following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the political calculus shifted: rather than accepting nuclear's continued decline as reactors reach end of life, the government decided new nuclear capacity was a more realistic way to meet a demand curve that renewables and storage alone weren't yet proven to cover at this speed and scale, even as it continues investing in wind in parallel. Source: IEA Sweden 2024 Country Report · Reuters/Metals and Miners reporting on the 2026 nuclear financing legislation.
Provenance
Attribution and citation
- Sources
- International Energy Agency (IEA) Sweden 2024 Country Report · Enerdata · Wikipedia (Energy in Sweden) · Low Carbon Power · Business Sweden · Reuters/Metals and Miners newsletter (2026 nuclear financing legislation)
- Cite as
- "Sweden Energy Profile — Complete Reference", The Energy Codex, https://thecodex.expert/energy/countries/sweden/, last updated .