Det oväntade strömavbrottet fick henne att skjuta upp kvällens tvätt.

This is a very common Swedish pattern called double definiteness.

When a noun is definite and also has an adjective in front of it, Swedish usually marks definiteness twice:

• with a separate definite article: det
• and with the definite ending on the noun: strömavbrott-et

So:

• ett strömavbrott = a power outage
• strömavbrottet = the power outage
• det oväntade strömavbrottet = the unexpected power outage

English only uses the, but Swedish often uses both forms together in this kind of phrase.

Because the adjective is in its definite form.

Compare:

• ett oväntat strömavbrott = an unexpected power outage
• det oväntade strömavbrottet = the unexpected power outage

The noun strömavbrott is an ett-word, so in the indefinite singular you get oväntat. But once the whole noun phrase becomes definite, the adjective changes to the definite form oväntade.

So here:

• oväntat = indefinite, neuter singular
• oväntade = definite form

It is the definite singular form of strömavbrott, which means power outage.

It is also a compound noun:

• ström = electricity/current
• avbrott = interruption/break

So:

• ett strömavbrott = a power outage
• strömavbrottet = the power outage

The ending -et shows that it is definite singular for an ett-word.

This uses the pattern:

få någon att + infinitive

It means to make/cause/get someone to do something.

So:

• fick henne att skjuta upp = made her postpone / caused her to postpone

This is a very useful Swedish structure. For example:

• Det fick mig att le. = It made me smile.
• Regnet fick oss att stanna hemma. = The rain made us stay home.

Here, the power outage caused her to do something.

Because henne is the object form of the pronoun, while hon is the subject form.

Compare:

• Hon tvättar. = She is doing laundry.

  • hon = subject

• Det fick henne att skjuta upp tvätten. = It made her postpone the laundry.

  • henne = object

Since she is the person affected by fick, Swedish uses henne.

Because the construction is:

få någon att göra något

So after få någon, Swedish normally uses att + infinitive.

That means:

• fick henne att skjuta upp
  not
• fick henne skjuta upp in standard Swedish for this meaning

So the att belongs naturally to this causative structure.

Yes. Skjuta upp is a particle verb, and it functions as a single meaning unit.

Literally, skjuta often means shoot or push, and upp means up, but together skjuta upp means postpone.

So you should learn it as one expression:

• skjuta upp ett möte = postpone a meeting
• skjuta upp tvätten = postpone the laundry

This is very common in Swedish: a verb plus a small particle can create a meaning that is not fully predictable from the individual words.

That -s is the genitive, which often corresponds to English 's.

So:

• kvällen = the evening
• kvällens = the evening’s / tonight’s

In kvällens tvätt, the idea is the evening’s laundry or tonight’s laundry.

Swedish uses this kind of genitive not only for possession, but also for time-related relationships like this one.

Because when a noun is modified by a genitive phrase, it usually does not also take its own definite article or definite ending.

So Swedish says:

• kvällens tvätt

not:

• kvällens tvätten

The genitive kvällens already makes the noun phrase specific enough. This is similar to how English says tonight’s laundry, not tonight’s the laundry.

Fick is the past tense of få.

Important forms are:

• få = infinitive
• får = present
• fick = past
• fått = supine/past participle-related form used in perfect tenses

So in this sentence, fick tells you that the event is described in the past.

This is a normal Swedish main clause, so it follows the V2 rule: the finite verb usually comes in the second position.

Here:

• Det oväntade strömavbrottet = first element
• fick = finite verb in second position
• henne att skjuta upp kvällens tvätt = the rest

So the structure is:

[subject phrase] + [finite verb] + [rest]

This is one of the most important patterns in Swedish sentence structure.