Research from Lund University has examined how Sweden is expanding utility-scale solar energy in the absence of an overarching national strategy. That’s what the researchers said pv magazine that without a clearer national direction, projects will cluster in areas with favorable conditions, while stalling elsewhere.
The Swedish utility-scale solar market is growing without a national strategic vision that encompasses its role, scale or spatial distribution, according to new research.
Researchers Georgios Pardalis and Jenny Palm, from Sweden’s Lund University, used document analysis and interviews to investigate how actors in the Swedish solar sector are expanding utility-scale solar energy in the absence of a nationally formulated vision. Their findings are presented in the research paper The grid, the land and the void: Sweden’s utility-scale solar expansion under strategic absenceavailable in the magazine Advanced sustainable systems.
Pardalis and Palm told it pv magazine that they found that the build-out of utility-scale solar energy in Sweden is taking place without a national strategy describing where it should go, how it should be connected to the electricity grid, and how it should be balanced with agricultural land and other land uses.
“Implementation is happening anyway, as developers, provincial authorities and network operators are filling the gap themselves, but they are doing this in very different ways across the country,” Pardalis and Palm explain. “The result is a patchwork. A project approved in one province may be rejected under similar circumstances in another province. That works in the short term, but it creates uncertainty for investors and uneven outcomes for communities.”
Their analysis adds that coordination of efforts increasingly depends on procedural solutions, informal harmonization and intermediary actors.
Some of the solutions outlined by interviewees include conducting pre-consultations with municipalities and provincial administrations to identify conflicts early, while some provincial administrations have created internal coordination routines between units handling measures including spatial planning and environmental assessments.
The research paper says such solutions help reduce friction but remain discretionary and do not form a coherent government framework. It adds that interviewees have repeatedly called for clearer national guidance on how solar farms should be assessed in relation to the protection of agriculture, biodiversity and the needs of the energy system.
Pardalis and Palm’s research also includes an analysis of how Sweden’s neighboring countries are adopting utility-scale solar energy approaches. They found that Denmark articulated a proactive government vision for large-scale renewable energy sources. Norway has formulated a clearer strategic position for solar energy than Sweden has not, despite not prioritizing large-scale solar energy, leading the research report to describe Sweden as a ‘Nordic outlier’.
“The Scandinavian comparison is telling,” said Pardalis and Palm pv magazine. “Denmark has introduced clearer rules for business locations, faster permits and compensation schemes for neighbors. None of this determines where projects go, it just makes conditions more predictable. Sweden could learn from this.”
Pardalis and Palm suggested that their findings could be useful for national authorities that shape most of the conditions for solar development, such as the Swedish Energy Agency and electricity transmission system operator Svenska Kraftnät, because it addresses where the system is under pressure, access to the electricity grid, land use and permitting decisions, and where informal practices hold things together.
At the request of pv magazine As for how they assess the prospects for the expansion of utility-scale solar in Sweden, Pardalis and Palm said they expect growth to continue, but they also expect it to become more uneven.
“Grid congestion in southern Sweden is already a hard limit, and queues for connections stretch into the 2030s. Conflicts over land use are also becoming increasingly intense,” they say. “Without clearer national direction, projects will cluster where conditions are favorable and stall elsewhere.”
The pair suggested a few changes that they said could make a real difference.
“Firstly, a good regulatory framework for agrivoltaic energy. Currently, dual-use projects are at risk of being treated as a land use change, which could cost farmers their agricultural subsidies. Secondly, national siting guidelines, similar to what already exists for wind energy. Thirdly, clearer rules for conditional and curtailable grid connections, so developers know what to expect when capacity is tight.”
“The point is not to centralize decisions,” Pardalis and Palm concluded. “It’s intended to give the people who are already doing this work a clearer set of shared rules to work from.”
Sweden deployed 652 MW of solar energy last year, bringing its cumulative capacity to around 5.4 GW. Large-scale solar accounted for 30% of new solar in 2025, up from 7% in 2024. New installations were led by Sweden’s largest solar power plant to date, the 100 MW Hultsfred solar park.
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