Swedish energy prices reached a record high point on Thursday after an electricity failure at a nuclear power station prompted the shutdown of two reactors amid safety fears.
Electricity was trading at 54.3 Swedish oere per kilowatt hour Thursday morning on the Nordic energy spot market Nordpool, up 2.4 percent from the previous day's average. It reached a record high of 54.4 early in the session.
Late Wednesday, the operator of the Oskarshamn nuclear power station on the southern Swedish coast said that two of its three reactors would be shut down because their safety was not guaranteed.
The decision followed an electricity fault at the Forsmark nuclear power station last week which led to one reactor shutdown and allegations that a reactor meltdown was prevented only by luck.
Two of the three Forsmark reactors have also stopped operating, taking the number of reactor shutdowns to four.
"Since we cannot yet be certain that our station could cope with an incident like that in Forsmark we have decided to halt operations until we get clearance, or instructions on what needs to be improved," Anders Oesterberg, spokesman for Oskarshamn operator OKG, told Swedish radio.
Sweden's energy market appeared to be coping with the reduced output on Thursday, helped by warm summer weather.
But the TT news agency quoted an expert as saying that in winter, when Sweden's energy needs rise sharply, four reactors going offstream would have serious repercussions for energy supply.
Sweden has shut two of its 12 nuclear reactors since 1999 as part of a plan to phase out nuclear power over the next 30 or so years, or until the reactors' life span expires.
But according to a recent opinion poll, an increasing number of Swedes want to continue to use nuclear energy and even expand it.
Nuclear power accounts for nearly half of Sweden's electricity production.
