Research from Lund University has explored how Sweden is building out utility-scale solar in the absence of an overarching national strategy. The researchers told pv magazine that without clearer national direction, projects will cluster in areas with favorable conditions while stalling elsewhere.
May 14, 2026
Sweden’s utility-scale solar market is growing without a national strategic vision covering its role, scale or spatial distribution, according to new research.
Researchers Georgios Pardalis and Jenny Palm, from Sweden’s Lund University, used document analysis and interviews to examine how actors in Sweden’s solar sector are expanding utility-scale solar in the absence of a nationally-articulated vision. Their findings are presented in the research paper The Grid, the Land, and the Void: Sweden's Utility-Scale Solar Expansion under Strategic Absence, available in the journal Advanced Sustainable Systems.
Pardalis and Palm told pv magazine that they found Sweden’s utility-scale solar build out is happening without a national strategy covering where it should go, how it should connect to the grid and how to balance it against farmland and other land uses.
