SwePol Link

In 2023 SwePol carried 4.0 TWh south from Sweden to Poland and just 0.3 TWh north. The first figure used 77% of the link’s technical capacity, the second 5%, according to the SwePol article.

The route is almost all sea. From the converter station on the Stärnö peninsula near Karlshamn, 2.22 km of underground cable reaches the shore, and then 239.28 km of submarine cable crosses the Baltic to landfall near Ustka on the Polish coast. The last 12.55 km runs underground to the converter at Bruskowo Wielkie, near Słupsk. The total is 254.05 km, although the List of HVDC projects gives 245 km.

The design was chosen with the environment in mind. The older Baltic Cable to Germany returns its current through the sea between electrodes. SwePol instead uses a metallic return: two cables of 630 mm² on the submarine section and a single cable of 1,100 mm² on land. Hitachi Energy, whose predecessor ABB built the link, describes the result as a completely closed HVDC cable system with no current through the seabed.

Commercial operation began in August 2000. The link was first owned by Svenska kraftnät (51%), Vattenfall (16%) and the Polish operator PSE (33%); today Svenska kraftnät and PSE hold it. On 14 February 2005 a fire destroyed the smoothing reactor at Bruskowo Wielkie, and repairs took 20 hours. In 2022, after the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, tests confirmed the cable had not been damaged. A 2024 upgrade replaced the complete HVDC control and protection equipment.

Poland’s other Baltic neighbour is reached by land, over the AC LitPol Link to Lithuania. SwePol’s 2023 numbers leave no doubt about its role: it is an export route for SE4, Sweden’s southernmost bidding zone.