Swedish PM calls for decoupling electricity, gas prices

Stockholm, Sep 3 (IANS) The Swedish government has called for decoupling gas from the electricity pricing system, as this would lead to lower electricity prices."It is not reasonable that Swedish households and companies buy Swedish electricity that is produced cheaply, but have to pay sky-high prices because many of our neighbouring countries are dependent on Russian gas," Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said at a press conference on Friday.Sweden's government will demand that electricity prices on the European energy market be decoupled from the price of gas, which has become unreasonably high due to Russia's "energy war" against Europe, according to Andersson.Decoupling gas would lead to the electricity price in southern Sweden being halved, Minister for Energy and Digital Development Khashayar Farmanbar said in the same press conference.The Prime Minister also announced that she would work for a broad coalition within the European Union to bring down the electricity cost, which has lately reached record levels, Xinhua news agency reported.The electricity price in Sweden, especially in the south, has repeatedly soared to new records during August this year with an average price of 3.05 Swedish crowns ($0.28) per kWh and peaks of close to eight crowns.
--IANS int/khz/

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