2026-08-28

Information about Baltic Cables outage and its impact on electricity prices

Due to a technical fault, Baltic Cable has been out of operation since 22 June 2026. Repair work is ongoing.

Current status of Baltic Cable

Due to a technical fault, Baltic Cable has been out of operation since 22 June 2026. Repair work is ongoing, and Baltic Cable provides regular updates on the status and expected return to service via Nord Pool’s UMM platform (link) and the ENTSO-E Transparency Platform (link). This is to ensure that all energy market participants have access to the same information at the same time.

Does the outage affect electricity prices in southern Sweden?

Sweden’s energy system is complex and electricity prices are determined by several factors. In particular, prices are affected by the extent to which wind and hydropower can be used to meet demand. Another factor is the interconnection capacity between Sweden and its neighbouring countries, both in the Nordic region and northern Europe.

Over the past year, Baltic Cable has operated at reduced capacity for certain periods, partly due to two extended outages following damage to the cable and a six-month period of operational challenges in the German electricity grid. These variations in available capacity provide a useful basis for determining the extent of Baltic Cable’s impact on electricity prices.

Nord Pool (Nord Pool) publishes daily market prices from the European day-ahead market, which are used in most household electricity contracts in Sweden. The chart above shows average prices in Sweden (SE4) and Germany (DE) between week 31 of 2025 and week 34 of 2026. Prices are set for each 15-minute period and bidding zone and are presented as weekly averages in EUR/MWh in the chart.

For six months between October 2025 and April 2026, a period shown in dark blue in the chart, Baltic Cable operated at around 30–35 per cent of its full capacity. The dark red areas indicate two periods when the cable has been completely out of operation and no capacity was allocated to the market.

Despite significant variations in Baltic Cable’ available capacity, prices in SE4 and Germany broadly followed each other over the period. This means that the relationship between prices in SE4 and Germany cannot be explained by Baltic Cable alone, and that many other factors affect this relationship to varying degrees at different times.