The Swedish government said on Monday it had rejected applications to build 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea due to defense concerns, while it had given the go ahead to one on the country's west coast.
Defense Minister Pal Jonson told a press conference that building wind farms in the Baltic Sea would damage defense interests, not least by making it harder to detect and shoot down missiles using Sweden's Patriot batteries in case of a conflict.
The single wind farm given the go-ahead, Poseidon on the west coast, will produce around 5.5 Twh of electricity a year, the government said.
A further 10 applications to build offshore wind farms are still waiting for a government decision.
Sweden is planning to double electricity production over the next two decades to around 300 Twh to meet an expected surge in demand as industry and the transport sector phase out the use of fossil fuels.
The right of center government has so far focused on nuclear power, aiming to build the equivalent of 10 full scale reactors by 2045. Sweden currently has 6 reactors in operation.
Sweden produced 163 Twh of electricity in 2023. Wind power, almost exclusively land-based, made up around 21% of that, at around 34 Twh.
(Reuters - Reporting by Simon Johnson, editing by Anna Ringstrom)
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