Europe’s energy crisis over Russia’s war against Ukraine disrupted electricity trade last year, making Sweden the region’s biggest power exporter after power outages at nuclear plants in France.
Sweden became the number one exporter for the first time, exporting 33 terawatt-hours of electricity to other countries in 2022, according to data from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (Entso-E) analyzed by Rystad Energy, Bloomberg reported.
The UK became a net exporter of electricity for the first time, followed by Spain and the Netherlands.
The severity of the energy crisis has been mitigated by electricity interconnectors between the continent’s countries that protect against blackouts.
The crisis in energy markets has turned attention to infrastructure security and the importance of interconnecting grids across the European Union (EU).
Lisa Fischer, Program Leader for Climate Neutral Energy Systems at the E3G think tank, said;
“Electricity infrastructure in Europe, like all large-scale infrastructure, is becoming a point source of risk through physical damage or cyber-attacks. But as connectivity across the EU grid increases, so do the options available to mitigate risk.”
The EU aims for the bloc’s 27 countries to be able to move 15 percent of their electricity generation to neighboring countries by 2030.
