The Strategic Direction of Swedish RegionalEnergy Companies

Abstract: The Swedish energy market consists of several different energy companies that possess different ownership structures. The strategical directions of the different energy companies are highly dependent on these ownership structures, due to the fact that the different owners decides the overall aim of the ownership which then is considered when creating a strategy. There are three dominant ownership structures for the energy companies within the Swedish energy market today which are; privately owned, governmentally owned and lastly energy companies owned by a municipality, often called regional energy companies. The strategical direction for the privately and governmentally owned energy companies are somewhat similar, where highprofitability often is prioritized combined with a sufficient sustainability. However, the strategical direction of the different regional energy companies differs greatly, depending on several different factors. The aim of this study is therefore to identify the strategical direction for 6 investigated regional energy companies, by examining different internal and external factors affecting this strategical direction.The study was based on 6 interviews with company representatives from each of the studied companies, where 5 of these representatives possessed the role as CEO and one possessed the role as senior advisor. These interviews was conducted in order to get a good understanding of the strategical direction of each company, and to identify the different internal and external factors affecting these.The results of this study identified several different external factors affecting the regional energy companies, which was then divided into 6 different categories; Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and lastly Legal. Different internal factors were also identified and categorized into five different areas, which were Politicians as owners, Aim of ownership, State of municipality, Risk management and Interpretation of municipal law. These factors was then used in order to identify the strategical directions of the studied regional energy companies, which differed substantially. However, there were areas within the different strategical directions that was similar to all investigatedcompanies. For example, all 6 investigated companies expressed the importance of aligning the energy companies and their offering with the changing customer demand that is highly connected to the increasing digitalization of the Swedish energy market.