This week, the electricity price in southern Sweden has skyrocketed – over SEK 5 per kilowatt-hour, excluding taxes and surcharges.

It is the highest level since the deregulation of the electricity market in the 1990s.

In the north, electricity costs a pittance in comparison.

Through the electricity exchange, prices in Sweden are affected by what happens on the continent.

Right now, Germany plays a decisive role, says Fredrik Beskow, market analyst at the Energy Market Inspection.

The country is highly dependent on Russian natural gas and supplies from Russia have recently been cut off.

- Then Germany needs to replace the gas with some other type of power, and then the demand for electricity has gone up, says Beskow.

Other factors that affect the price right now are the weather.

If it is windy, for example, the supply increases due to wind power.

High temperatures can also negatively affect nuclear power production in Southern Europe.

That's how expensive it gets

For those who intended to fix the electricity price, it is currently record expensive.

This is shown by recent August figures from the authority website Elpriskollen, which SVT has seen.

For an apartment in the southernmost electricity price area, one-year electricity price agreements cost an average of SEK 5.15.

If you count on a consumption of 2,000 kWh per year, the electricity bill lands at SEK 850 a month.

For a villa in the same area, the price is SEK 4.99 per kwh.

If the household has a consumption of 20,000 kWh per year, for example because the house is electrically heated, the monthly cost will be over SEK 8,000.

The companies scrap fixed prices

Many electricity companies have recently stopped offering fixed price contracts.

Since the beginning of 2021, the number of companies offering fixed prices has almost halved.

The reason may be the great uncertainty in the market, Fredrik Beskow emphasizes.

- There is a risk that it will be too expensive to sign an agreement, so that no one signs it.

Or you settle on a lower price and then the company can lose money on it.

One of the companies that abandoned the fixed price contracts is Bixia.

- It is not possible to handle this volatility for the vast majority of companies, says Johan Sigvardsson, analyst at the company.

- We do not own any electricity production and we do not have the capacity to handle the fluctuations that are in the market right now.