Syftet med detta examensarbete är att studera om scenariot off-grid är en potentiell riktning i framtidens svenska energilandskap, samt undersöka vad som kan driva en sådan utveckling. För detta examensarbete har en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi tillämpats, genom ett abduktivt förhållningssätt till funnen empiri och teori. En empirisk datainsamling har genomförts i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer med ett tiotal aktörer på den svenska elnätsmarknaden. Därefter har en tematisk analys utförts, där det empiriska materialet ställts mot teori. Studien påvisar att det idag finns flertalet faktorer som kan vara drivande för en utveckling mot ett off-grid elsystem. I studiens empiriska material går det att finna tecken på att flertalet informanter tror att en förändring av dagens svenska elsystem behövs. Dock hur troligt det är, att en sådan förändringsprocess sker, finner studien inga belägg eller grunder för. De faktorer som skulle driva utvecklingen mot ett elsystem som karaktäriseras som off-grid kan identifieras som prisutveckling, utveckling i andra sektorer, ändrad tariffsättning, decentralisering, lagstiftning, ökad popularitet samt exempel där off-grid har realiserats. / The purpose of this master thesis is to study whether the off- grid scenario is a potential direction in the Swedish energy landscape of the future, and to investigate what can drive such development. For this master thesis, a qualitative research strategy has been applied, through an abductive approach towards the found empirical material and theory. An empirical data collection has been carried out in the form of semi-structured interviews with ten actors in the Swedish electricity grid market. Subsequently, a thematic analysis has been carried out, in which the empirical material is set against the theory. The study shows that there today are several factors that can drive the development towards an off-grid electricity system in Sweden. In the study’s empirical material, it is possible to find signs that most informants believe that change in today’sSwedish electricity system is needed. However, how likely it is that such a change process will take place, the study finds no evidence for. The factors that would drive the development towards an electricity system characterized by off-grid can be identified as price development, development in other sectors, changed tariff set, decentralization, legislation, increased popularity and examples where off-grid has been realized.

In recent years, we have seen that global, national, and local governments have put sustainability goals on their agendas. Thus, at different levels and in different sectors, efforts are underway to promote a ‘green shift’, including the energy sector. As a result, landscapes of renewable energy sources are emerging in areas that have sufficient “empty landscapes” (LABLAB, 2023) – namely sparsely populated spaces that lie outside the administrative boundaries of cities. However, the discipline of spatial planning rarely discusses changing landscapes in the hinterlands and the resulting consequences for embedded communities. The city as an energy consumer is treated in isolation from its counterpart, the hinterland as an energy producer. In this context, it is unclear what interrelationships are present between the formation of ‘new energy landscapes’ (Pasqualetti and Stremke, 2018; LABLAB, 2023), the urban ‘hinterland’ (Brenner, 2016; Westlund, 2018; Brenner and Katsikis, 2020), and the realities of embedded communities there.The geographies in the Swedish province of Jämtland belonging to the territory of the indigenous Southern Sápmi offer a suitable basis for a study that could fill this research gap. Thus, the objective of this thesis is to raise awareness of potentially conflicting interests between cities - striving to become more ‘sustainable’ - and the emergence of ‘new energy landscapes’ in the ‘hinterlands’ by including two different perspectives: an urban economic lens on the hinterland and a non-urban lens taken from the lived everyday lives of Sápmi communities embedded in new energy landscapes. This thesis poses three research questions to which it aims to find answers by using qualitative semi-structured, problem-centred interviews. It thus follows an interpretative abductive research approach. Through the analysis of the empirical data, the thesis shows that a joint discussion of the two discourses (‘hinterland’ and ‘new energy landscapes’) can help to gain a new understanding of urbanisation processes by including the perspective of non-urban communities in questions of urban sustainability. Furthermore, the thesis serves as an eye-opener for spatial planners to incorporate indigenous knowledge and lived experiences into the field of urban studies.