26 Sep 2024

Umeå Energi and Skellefteå Kraft Collaborate to Ensure Network Reliability

How do we maintain network reliability during crises? How do we meet society’s increasing demands for digitalization? These are questions that Umeå Energi and Skellefteå Kraft are now seeking to answer together.
“The entire region benefits if more city networks collaborate and exist in the same ecosystem,” explain Mats Berggren, CEO of Umeå Energi Umenet AB, and Anders Pettersson, CEO of Skellefteå Kraft Fibernät AB.

Recently, Umeå Energi and Skellefteå Kraft signed a letter of intent to explore the possibility of jointly operating the city networks of Umeå and Skellefteå with shared resources. The plans cover a total of 60,000 customers in the city networks.

In this way, the companies hope to increase operational reliability and better respond to society’s growing need for digitalization.

“To achieve this, we need to standardize processes and coordinate resources in several areas. When operations are then conducted in a similar manner, resources and expertise can be used across city network boundaries,” explains Anders Pettersson.

Ambitions for the Entire Västerbotten Region

Among other things, it requires that the active networks of each city network are built in the same way and with the same type of equipment. But the ambitions do not stop at Umeå and Skellefteå.

“In the long run, we believe that the entire Västerbotten region’s development in operations, security, and digitalization will benefit from more city networks existing in the same ecosystem. Good work is already being done in the region today, and we hope that deeper cooperation between Umeå and Skellefteå will also be able to take collaboration within the region as a whole to a new level and make us stronger together,” says Mats Berggren and continues:

“If we also have a common system environment, we can use each other’s expertise and coordinate our resources even better, which in the end will benefit the citizens of the region,” he believes.

Benefits for Citizens

This reasoning is supported by a recent survey conducted by the consulting firm Canea, commissioned by the Swedish City Network Association. In it, Canea states that Sweden’s public fiber infrastructure “stands and falls with the ability to collaborate.”

“In the end, it’s about economic sustainability, control over critical infrastructure, and creating benefits for citizens,” says Anders Pettersson.

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Photo: Fredrik Larsson