On July 3rd, the opening day of Almedalsveckan, Nordic Energy Research’s Senior Adviser Andrea Stengel participated as panelist at the event “Hållbar energi för alla – hur ska Norden lösa den gröna omställningen?” Almedalsveckan is the world’s biggest democratic venue for discussing societal issues, taking place in Visby on Gotland, Sweden.

From the left: Moderator Matts Lindqvist, Andrea Stengel, Paula Lehtomäki, Simon-Erik Ollus, Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, and Anna Wolf on stage.

Andrea discussed questions about Nordic electricity market co-operation, together with the four other panelists Simon-Erik Ollus, Executive Vice President, Generation Division at Fortum, Anna Wolf, Acting CEO and Power Systems Expert at Power Circle AB, Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, Member of Parliament (M), and Paula Lehtomäki, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The points of discussion revolved around the importance, challenges, future, pricing, and national/Nordic/European aspects of the electricity market co-operation in the Nordic region.

Wide consensus about potentials and challenges

“The panel widely agreed that Nordic co-operation is even more important today than before. We also agreed that we are on the right track and that there is great potential, but that there are challenges as well,” says Andrea. “The challenges are political, as it isn’t easy for politicians to co-operate across borders given the new populist difficulties and high consumer prices. It is demanding for the individual politician to explain complex contexts beyond export and rising costs. But as the co-operation is valuable and benefits everyone in the long run, the challenges are worthwhile (and expected) to be faced by the politicians.”

Watch the recorded panel discussion here