The proposal is about support of SEK 55 billion which will be distributed retroactively to electricity customers in southern Sweden, i.e. in electricity price areas 3 and 4.
– This will above all have a very big effect for those who have had incredible difficulty paying their electricity bills and who had a tough time last winter, and who know that it will be even worse this winter, says Minister of Energy and Industry Ebba Busch (KD) in tonight’s Current Affairs.
When asked if it is reasonable that even customers who are financially well off, and who, for example, own both a villa and a holiday home in these areas, should be able to take part in the support, Busch answers:
– But those who have paid a lot in electricity prices, they have also paid a lot into this system. And then it is also reasonable that you get some back that will help for the time to come.
Can risk the drive to save on electricity
John Hassler, professor of economics, believes that house owners in southern Sweden as a group are not poor, and would have liked the support to have been designed differently.
– I would rather have seen a subsidy introduced where you can postpone your electricity bills, and where the state can guarantee those payments so that the electricity companies don’t have to take the risk.
He believes that the current proposal risks reducing incentives to save electricity.
– The support can have negative effects if it is believed that it will recur. When there is a shortage of electricity, it has to pay to reduce its electricity use and this proposal risks reducing those driving forces – and in the long term it is serious, says Hassler.
Ebba Busch disagrees and believes that other experts have pointed out why the model is good.
– That is to say that it is based on historical data, which makes it fair, transparent and that it is based on actual costs that have been incurred in the past, she says and continues:
– When you are told that the forecast is that it will be even more expensive this winter, then I think there are few people who will rush through this winter.
Whether there will be more electricity subsidy payments in the future, the Minister of Energy and Industry cannot comment on at the moment.