New offshore wind in Sweden not viable without support, government commission says

Developing offshore wind projects off Sweden's coasts is not commercially viable currently, a government commission tasked with reviewing and speeding up the system for authorising new wind parks said on Friday.

The commission recommended that Sweden should switch to an auction system for offshore wind farms, widely used in other countries, but the head of the commission said that this would not in itself lead to more wind parks being constructed.

"The analysis shows that with today's market conditions, there are no areas that can be developed on a commercially viable basis," Magnus Hermansson said.

The government reckons Sweden will need to double electricity production in the coming two decades and has said it wants to build 10 new nuclear power plants.

At the start of November, the government rejected 13 of 14 offshore wind applications citing objections from the military about security in the Baltic Sea.

Currently, Sweden allows offshore wind developers to apply to build anywhere but this has led to large numbers of applications being rejected.