– Not just serious, but disaster

BJORDAL (Dagbladet): – We can not lose our local store.

This is one of the concerns of the four men Dagbladet meets in Bjordal.

The small village is located on the south side of the Sognefjord in Høyanger municipality, “on the wrong” side of the current boundary.

It goes right through the municipality an invisible boundary, which separates two current regions, where one region, West (NO5), now has just over eight times more expensive electricity than the other region, North (N03).

And Bjordal is thus located in the current region West.

The village has around 400 inhabitants. They are all customers of the grocery store, which has been operating there for 110 years.

– Then the fish dies

It is Jan Arne Brekke who expresses concern for the store’s future. However, he is also concerned on his own behalf, and on behalf of his ten employees, and it is the electricity prices he blames for the unrest.

Brekke farms halibut on land in a 10,000 m2 pool in Ortnevik in Bjordal. It is a production that requires a lot of electricity, and a production where it is difficult, almost impossible to save electricity, according to himself.

– I can not just turn off the power or stop production. Then the fish dies, he says.

– Disaster

When he got the electricity bill for January this year, he called that he joked calls the “psychologist” – that is, the accountant.

– In January last year, I received an electricity bill of between 60,000 and 70,000 kroner. In January this year, it was 208,000 kroner, he says, and deepens the despair:

– I compete with other breeders, who I can almost look away from, but who pay eight to ten times less than me in electricity.

He describes the situation he is in as a crisis, and calls for more predictability in electricity costs.

– This is not only serious, but it is a disaster, he believes.

– Only 400 customers

Geirfinn Førde runs the grocery store in Bjordal, together with his wife. Førde was born and raised in Bjordal and says he has experienced power development there all his life. The paradox is that the inhabitants themselves are not allowed to benefit from that power, he believes.

– We have recently restored the store, and come into full operation. But now all our money goes to pay for electricity. It continues with bills that are now all of last year’s profits gone, he says.

– It strikes the legs under one, he adds.

He points out that being able to get new or more customers is difficult.

– We only have the 400 customers we have. We have to get electricity help, otherwise this will not work, he believes.

– Families involved

A couple of kilometers further into the valley, at the end of Østrebøvatnet, is the fish farm Osland hatchery.

When the general manager there, Kjetil Rørtveit, stands outside the production hall, he can look over at a large, new power plant. It is perhaps only 500 meters away.

But since the hatchery is located in the expensive power zone, the short distance does not help anything.

– Since we are in the wrong electricity zone, we still have to pay for the expensive electricity, says Rørtveit.

He has 11 employees at the plant, he says, and most of them live in Bjordal.

– There are families involved, says Rørtveit.

For him, too, electricity prices now pose a threat to the company’s future prospects.

– The bill last month was ten times higher than it was the same month last year, he says, and points out that his production is also competitive.

– If it continues like this, it will be critical for the company, Rørtveit believes.

– See the madness

Deputy Mayor Geir Helge Østerbø (Sp) in Høyanger believes that the electricity situation in the municipality can be used as a thumbnail image of the electricity situation in the rest of the country.

– We are a power-producing municipality, which also produces sustainable food. But only half the municipality can benefit from the power, and that in turn goes beyond the food to be produced.

– In Bjordal we are therefore now in the water crust and awake. We hope someone sees the madness in this. The madness we see in the rest of the country, we now see in our own municipality, he says.

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