Sweden

The Swedish power system is divided into four bidding areas (SE1–SE4) by the Swedish National Transmission System Operator, Svenska Kraftnät. The aim with this division is to address electricity supply-demand imbalance:

The bidding areas are intended to pinpoint bottlenecks and regions in Sweden where grid expansion is necessary and where increased electricity generation can alleviate consumption demands, thus reducing the need for long-distance electricity transmission.

Sweden and Norway have a common technology-neutral market-based support system for renewable electricity production called “the electricity certificate system”. The scheme has been an important driving force for the deployment of renewable energy. The 2030 goal within the scheme of 46.4 TWh new renewable electricity generation was reached already in 2021. The scheme has been closed for new applications since the end of 2021.

A tax deduction for individuals installing PV, batteries or charging points for electric vehicles has been in place since 2021. Through this incentive, a 15% deduction (reduced from 20% on July 1^st, 2025) for labour and material costs associated with PV installations can be applied. The tax deduction has a cap of 50 000 SEK per person and year. For batteries, purposed for storing own electricity production, as well as for charging equipment for electrical vehicles, the deduction is 50%.

In 2015 a tax credit scheme for small-scale renewable electricity generation injected to the grid was introduced. The scheme entitled the owner of a PV system, having a main fuse ≤ 100 A, to a feed-in premium in form of a tax credit of 0.6 SEK per kWh of electricity fed into the grid. You couldn’t, however, receive credit for more kWh than the amount of electricity you consumed from the grid in a year. There was a cap on the tax credit of 30 000 kWh/18 000 SEK per year. As of January 1^st, 2026, the tax credit has expired.

A PV electricity producer that owns one or more PV systems whose total installed power amounts to less than 500 kWp does not have to pay any energy tax for the electricity consumed on the same premises as where the PV systems are installed.

Currently, there is no well-defined implementation of energy communities in Sweden, nor a clear definition that fosters widespread adoption in society. However, amendments to the Swedish Electricity Act, effective 1 January 2023, have clarified and expanded the right to operate internal electricity networks without a grid concession. Property owners and groups of neighbours can now share electricity within a defined area —provided the network is not open to the public and remains internal to a single property or delimited site.

tax credit of 30 000 kWh/18 000 SEK per year. As of January 1^st, 2026, the tax credit has expired.

A PV electricity producer that owns one or more PV systems whose total installed power amounts to less than 500 kWp does not have to pay any energy tax for the electricity consumed on the same premises as where the PV systems are installed.

Currently, there is no well-defined implementation of energy communities in Sweden, nor a clear definition that fosters widespread adoption in society. However, amendments to the Swedish Electricity Act, effective 1 January 2023, have clarified and expanded the right to operate internal electricity networks without a grid concession. Property owners and groups of neighbours can now share electricity within a defined area —provided the network is not open to the public and remains internal to a single property or delimited site.

RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT & DEMONSTRATION

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Research, development, and demonstration is supported through several national research funding agencies, universities, and private institutions in Sweden. Among the national research funding agencies, the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) is specifically responsible for the national research related to energy and is the largest funding source for research and innovation projects within PV. In 2024 the Swedish Energy Agency distributed approximatively 42m SEK to PV-related research.

Starting in 2022, the main program of SEA for the funding of projects related to the electricity system is Future Power Systems  (Framtidens Elsystem). This is a broad research and innovation program covering topics ranging from electricity production and the electricity grid to research related to electricity use. The current program period is from 2022 to 2029, and the budget is 1 327m SEK. International projects are funded within the EU-collaboration CETPartnership.

The Swedish Energy Agency also funds the centre of excellence, Solar Electricity Research Centre, Sweden (SOLVE). This is a strategic partnership between research institutions and stakeholders within the private and public sectors. The activities in SOLVE are funded in equal parts by the academic partners, the public/private sector partners and the Swedish Energy Agency. The total budget of SOLVE is more than 100m SEK over five years (2022 – 2026).

Some other organisations funding PV research are The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Vinnova), and The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF).

Swedish solar cell related research is diverse and consists of fundamental research into new types of solar cells and photovoltaic materials as well as research on system performance, sustainability, and the integration of PV with storage and the power system. An overview of then active research groups was included in the National Survey Report-of PV Power Applications in Sweden 2021.

In 2024, Sweden installed 848 MW of new PV capacity, bringing total installed capacity to around 4.8 GW (see National Survey Report of PV Power Applications in Sweden 2024). Thus, the market contracted by almost half compared to the previous year. It is worth to note that 2023 was an exceptionally strong year with installations driven largely by high electricity prices. Despite the decline, 2024 still stands as the second-best year on record for Swedish PV deployment.

The PV development in Sweden is primarily distributed, constituting about 92% of the cumulative installations. Electricity from PV in 2024 amounted to 4.1 TWh corresponding to 2.4% of the total net electricity generation.

Battery energy system storage (BESS) has become an increasingly important component of the Swedish PV market. The Swedish solar association has estimated that the cumulative installation of batteries was approximately 1.0 GW at the end of 2024. The combination of PV and batteries is driven by the tax reduction for green technology, opportunities to increase self-consumption, and the possibility of participating in grid service markets.

Utility-scale solar is still evolving in Sweden and the main business model is corporate PPAs. Sweden is seeing the emergence of a new generation of large solar parks, with projects well above 20 MW and several exceeding 100 MW now under development. Permitting delays and grid connection bottlenecks do however remain challenges for ground-mounted PV parks, especially in areas with high connection demand or limited capacity. In 2025, a 100 MWp PV park was commissioned in Hultsfred, in the south of Sweden, making this the country´s largest solar park by far.

Also in 2025, the association of large-scale solar developers (the Network for Solar Parks) merged with the Swedish Wind Energy Association to form Green Power Sweden.

The Swedish PV industry mainly consists of small to medium size installers and retailers of PV modules or systems. The downstream industry of installers and retailers in Sweden has grown for several years. Thera are two active, though relatively small, module manufacturing companies, Midsummer and Swemodule, and in recent years new initiatives in polysilicon and silicon module production have emerged. There are also companies manufacturing production machines or balance of systems components as well as some R&D companies.