Published 2026-09-10 · Event 2026-05-29

SE1–SE4 review reading guide: what 29 May 2026 did and did not change

On 29 May 2026 the government expanded Svenska kraftnät’s assignment to analyse Sweden’s bidding-area division. The report is due on 29 January 2027. An EU-wide review reported on 28 April 2025 did not propose changing Sweden’s four areas. Until any later legal change, SE1 Luleå, SE2 Sundsvall, SE3 Stockholm and SE4 Malmö remain the operative wholesale areas. They still do not allocate spare megawatts to a plot.

A reader who opens a Swedish data-center file in 2026 will meet two bidding-area stories that look alike and are not. One story is the operative map: four areas whose names Energimarknadsinspektionen publishes as SE1 Luleå, SE2 Sundsvall, SE3 Stockholm and SE4 Malmö. The other story is political and analytical work on whether that map should change. Mixing the two stories produces a false site conclusion — that a review is already a connection offer, or that an unchanged map is already a spare-megawatt certificate.

Read the file in this order. First, Energimarknadsinspektionen’s explanation of what a bidding area is. Second, Svenska kraftnät’s page on the national analysis, which records both the 15 May 2025 assignment and the 29 May 2026 expansion. Third, the government press notice of 29 May 2026, which states the new reporting date and the extra products. Fourth, ENTSO-E’s 28 April 2025 notice on the European bidding-zone study, which is the dated source for the sentence that Nordic transmission system operators proposed to maintain Sweden’s current configuration. Fifth, only then, any project in Luleå, Gävle, Stockholm, Falun, Staffanstorp or Falkenberg.

A bidding area is a wholesale-market geography. Inside an area, electricity can be bought and sold without the market engine treating internal transmission limits as a price split. The four Swedish areas exist so that constraints on the transmission system show up in the wholesale price. That is a market-design fact. It is not a property-level allocation of import capacity. A cheap hour in SE1 does not prove that a new hall in Luleå or Boden can connect next year. An expensive hour in SE4 does not, by itself, prove that Staffanstorp or Falkenberg cannot connect.

The physical system underneath those prices is layered. Svenska kraftnät operates the transmission network. Other companies operate regional and local networks. Svenska kraftnät’s own connection portal says that an installation should, as a main rule, connect at the lowest voltage level that is technically and systemically suitable, and that most applicants therefore start with the local network owner. In practice, existing distribution systems often apply onward to the transmission grid. A bidding-area colour on a slide does not replace that sequence.

On 15 May 2025 the government asked Svenska kraftnät to analyse the conditions for changing the Swedish division. Svenska kraftnät’s analysis page says the authority is looking at a single national area, two areas with a border at the present cut 2, and several areas according to one of the alternatives that the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators developed in the joint European review reported in April 2025. The assignment also includes the possibility of special bidding areas for export. Those are analysis cases. They are not a new operative map.

On 29 May 2026 the government decided to prolong and expand that assignment. The press notice says Svenska kraftnät must now also produce a report on structural congestion. The same notice says that report can, under EU rules, be used to start a formal process for changing Sweden’s bidding areas. Svenska kraftnät must also judge which division is most appropriate for the coming five to ten years. If that division implies more than two areas, the authority must also produce an action plan for how two areas could become possible. The expanded assignment is to be reported no later than 29 January 2027.

The analysis page adds method, not megawatts. Svenska kraftnät says it will use criteria of operational security, security of supply, calculation of capacity between areas, market efficiency, and the stability and reliability of the areas. It will also assess how the analysed divisions affect Swedish and northern European prices, bottleneck revenues and the functioning of the financial electricity market relative to keeping the present division. The work uses the authority’s long-term scenarios with a focus on 2030, 2035 and 2040, and a particular focus on 2035. None of those sentences is a connection offer for Falun, Kista or Staffanstorp.

The European layer has a dated outcome that is easy to over-read. On 28 April 2025 ENTSO-E published the bidding-zone study of the 2025 target year. For the Nordic region the notice says that none of the studied alternative configurations provided higher economic efficiency, with a negative change ranging from two million to thirty-five million euros compared with the status quo for that target year. Nordic transmission system operators therefore proposed to maintain the current Swedish configuration. The study assessed four alternative Swedish configurations — two with three bidding zones and two with four. A proposal to maintain the map is not a finding that every Swedish plot has spare power.

Named projects in this register sit in the four areas as follows, and only as follows. Meta Luleå and the Boden operator record sit in SE1. Microsoft Gävle and Microsoft Sandviken sit in SE2, as does atNorth SWE04 in Sollefteå. Stockholm colocation, EcoDataCenter Falun and evroc Arlandastad sit in SE3. Microsoft Staffanstorp and GleSYS Falkenberg sit in SE4. AWS Europe (Stockholm) is a Sweden-region name without a published municipality on the cited launch pages and is not used here as an area pin. Those assignments follow official area names. They are not a DataCenterSweden score.

Common misreads of the 2026–2027 work are already visible in market conversation. One misread is that the May 2026 assignment has already reduced Sweden to two areas. It has not. Another is that the April 2025 European study “approved” residual capacity in SE1 or “rejected” halls in SE4. It did not discuss plots. A third is that a future action plan for two areas is already a connection queue. A fourth is to treat a 2035 scenario year as a 2026 energization date. A fifth is to add unpublished county megawatts because a review is open.

What to ask next is institutional, not rhetorical. Has Svenska kraftnät published the 29 January 2027 report yet, and which alternative does it judge most appropriate for the next five to ten years? If more than two areas remain in that judgement, what does the action plan actually say? Has any legal change been adopted after the report, or do SE1–SE4 still apply? Separately, which network owner has issued a written position for the property in the file, and is that paper an inquiry reply, a reservation or a signed agreement? Those questions do not collapse into one.

The review file also does not replace municipal planning. Boverket’s guidance on detailed development plans still governs how a municipality adopts land use. A bidding-area alternative on a slide does not rezone Hamre, Slaggvarpsvägen or Kanslistvägen. Environmental assessment, where it applies, still sits with the environmental authorities. Inspektionen för strategiska produkter still screens certain foreign direct investments under a different statute. Each counterpart keeps its paper.

This article is a reading guide to dated process. It uses the government notice, Svenska kraftnät’s analysis page, Energimarknadsinspektionen’s area explanation and ENTSO-E’s 28 April 2025 study notice. It does not forecast the January 2027 report. It does not recommend a division. It does not convert a wholesale-area colour into a reserved import. Readers who need a site decision should leave this file with better questions for the network owner and the municipality, not with a spare-megawatt number that no cited source published for a county or a plot.

Why it matters

A live national review can be mistaken for a site-level yes or no. The 29 May 2026 assignment and the 29 January 2027 deadline are real dates. They change what a data room should contain. They do not change SE1–SE4 today, and they do not publish spare megawatts for Luleå, Gävle, Stockholm, Falun, Staffanstorp or Falkenberg.

What remains unknown

The January 2027 report does not yet exist in this file. Whether any later legal change follows that report is unknown. No cited source converts the review into a property-level connection answer.

Sources