The electricity shortage in Sweden is alarming and has caused prices to soar. This has called for drastic measures, one of which is to start up the more than 50-year-old oil-fired backup power plant Karlshamnsverket. It has been burning so much that their own CEO Henrik Svensson has drawn attention to the serious situation for the electricity supply, something we also wrote about earlier(read more here).
Now production has continued to increase, despite the negative climate impact. As a result, the plant now needs employees to cover future needs.
- As the deficit in electricity production in southern Sweden grows, the Karlshamn power plant is playing an increasingly important role in securing electricity production. This year we have increased production significantly. We are now planning to strengthen the organisation, which currently has more than 50 employees. The goal is to hire at least a dozen new people to be able to scale up further, says Henrik Svensson to DI.
For the Karlhamn plant to be available to the electricity market outside the winter months, it needs very high electricity prices to be profitable, according to the newspaper. When production was running last week, they burned about 70,000 liters of oil per hour - but they are getting ready to burn even more.
- "We have already produced more than we did in the whole of last year. Production remains modest in relation to our total capacity, and we are now preparing to be able to increase further if needed to secure the electricity supply and meet the growing risk of acute power shortages that Svenska kraftnät has warned about.
