This task is performed by the Operating Balance Service who works in our control room. They monitors the electricity balance in the short-term and keeps the frequency of the grids at 50 Hz. Deviations in frequency occur when the planned production of electricity does not correspond with the actual consumption.

Svenska Kraftnät collaborates with thirty or so players, known as balance providers. Through agreements with us, these have assumed the balance responsibility for one or more electricity consumers. Balance responsibility entails assuming the financial responsibility for Sweden's electricity system, hour by hour, being supplied with the same amount of power that is being used by the electricity consumers for whom the balance responsibility has been assumed.

The balance provider creates a balance between his supply and consumption by planning his production, if he engages in this, and by buying and selling power through trade with other balance providers, and on the power exchange Nord Pool.

Deviations in frequency arising during the operating phase, due to balance providers not being able, in most cases, to create a perfect balance, are corrected by Svenska Kraftnät's Balance Service during the hour of delivery itself (balance regulation). The price of regulation is set for each hour of delivery and the cost of each balance provider's imbalance between supply and consumption is later calculated in the balance settlement.