Court rules to stop Swedish - Poland power link
Date: 04-Jun-99
Country: Sweden
Author: Abigail Schmelz
An appeals court decided on Wednesday that more evidence was needed to
show that the project's benefits outweigh its 2.6 billion crown ($301.4
million) cost following a new environmental law which took effect this
year.
"The court now has to examine why the cable is so important - if it's
good for society or if it's just economic gains for the companies,"
Dagmar Nordberg, chairwoman of a group called Network Against the Poland
Cable, told Reuters.
"It's the same game but now we're playing it with new rules. This case
will test whether the new Swedish environmental law is a tiger with
teeth or without."
But the cable's owners, a company called SwePol Link AB, is confident
about the project's future.
SwePol Link is 48 percent owned by Swedish state-owned utility
Vattenfall , 51 percent owned by Swedish state-owned grid
Svenska Kraftnat, and one percent by Poland's power grid PSE.
"The main reason behind the SwePol link is to try to make the power
supply system more efficient - by selling power when we have it cheap
and by buying it when it's expensive," Allan Lundberg, SwePol chief
executive, told Reuters.
Environmentalists say the network will open Sweden to less
environmentally sound electricity produced in Poland and eventually from
Lithuania's unsafe nuclear power plant Ignalina. The effects on water
and plant life is unkwown, they say.
Sweden's electricity grid is already connected to those in Finland,
Denmark, and Germany. Demark and Germany are linked, as well as Norway
and Denmark. Swedish electricity prices have fallen 25 percent since
deregulation of the market.
The Polish-Swedish link is part of a plan to connect all the Nordic and
Baltic electricity grids. The 240-km (150-mile) sea cable will have a
capacity of 600 megawatts (MW) and 450 kilovolts (kV) and last 30-40
years.
In a normal year SwePol expects a net export of two-four teraWatt hours
(TWh) of electricity, depending on hydropower production and weather in
Sweden, which could mean a reduction in output from Polish power
stations.
In one in 10 years Sweden will import electricity on the cable, SwePol
said.
SwePol argues it has experience operating these cables, including its
installation of the world's first high voltage direct current link
between Sweden and the island of Gotland. Environmental impact is
limited, it says.
SwePol has not halted the project, but is following the court order to
discontinue work along the 38 km (24 mile) stretch in Swedish waters. It
is continuing on land portions in Sweden, Poland and in international
waters.
The project was estimated to be completed in March or April 2000. So far
this date has not been postponed, SwePol said.
