NATO exercises hybrid threats against renewable energy in Sweden

Last Thursday, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas warned in a speech to the nation that Russia could disconnect the Baltics from the electricity grid.

SAS-163 is a research group within NATO's STO department, the equivalent of the Swedish FOI, which participated in the hybrid shot exercise in Sweden last week.

- I take seriously everything that comes from Estonia's leader, as well as everything that comes from Moscow, says Arnold Dupuy who is the chairman of SAS-163, a systems analysis study that looks at hybrid threats to the energy supply.

"Swedish resilience"

Can you imagine a similar scenario in Sweden?

- It is possible.

There is a certain resilience built into the Swedish system, so the consequences of a targeted attack on the Swedish power grid would hopefully not be too severe.

It has a certain measure of excess capacity, of resilience, so hopefully the situation could be handled and the power grid restored shortly, says Dupuy.

At the same time as the statement was made, the NATO exercise was taking place in Sweden, where various types of hybrid threats were played out.

It is the first exercise of its kind where the focus was to test the safety of the renewable energy systems such as wind and solar power.

- The main reason is that the industry is quite new and quite immature, says exercise leader Freddy Jönsson Hanberg from the research institute Rise.

But there are also advantages that make renewable energy less vulnerable to hybrid warfare.

- Renewable energy systems allow "island operation".

Smaller consumption clusters can be isolated.

Prioritization list

The big question, however, is which consumers are prioritized in the event of a power outage.

Svenska kraftnät has signaled several times in recent months that it may be appropriate to disconnect electricity users due to energy shortages.

But the list of who is prioritized is not public.

- Partly that information is not open information and partly you can say that you don't know until that situation occurs, says exercise leader Freddy Jönsson Hanberg.

He refers to the Energy Agency's "Styrel", which is a description of the planning that is done to be able to prioritize "societal important electricity users",

- As for manual (disengaging) it has never happened.

Extreme situations must occur for that to happen, says Jönsson Hanberg.