What will it take for European electricity prices to no longer affect Norwegian electricity prices – without the foreign cables being cut?
The Energy Commission could answer that then presented his report earlier this winter:
“In the case of very high power surpluses, bottlenecks abroad will lead to the power being “locked in” in Norway, and Norwegian prices fall significantly below the average prices in Europe. NVE’s model results show such a decoupling of the Norwegian power price in the event of a power surplus of around 40 TWh», wrote the Energy Commission.
Such “locking in” is the reason that Northern Norway had record low prices last year, at the same time as there was a crisis in Southern Norway.
According to Statnett, however, Norway wants to have a deficit over four years.
How much is 40 TWh really?
But what does it really mean to have a power surplus of 40 TWh? It is a number that is very difficult to take in.
We know that a panel oven uses around 1 kWh per hour. The electricity consumption of a household is usually 11-30,000 kWh a year.
Below we will try to illustrate how much 40 TWh – 40 billions kWh – actually amounts to.
Will use rooftops
Several parties, including both the Labor Party and the Conservative Party, promote solar power as an important new energy investment, also in the winter country of Norway.
Solar cells placed on roofs are the most common form. There is sometimes a very large difference in how big the potential is for production. Both the angle of the roof, general sun conditions and where in the country you live.
A randomly selected detached house on Ris in Oslo has space for 34 solar panels on the most suitable part of the roof. It will provide an annual production of 12,000 kWh per year, and will cost approximately NOK 280,000 to install.
To produce 40 TWh of electricity, 3.33 million such houses will be needed. In Norway, there are 1.3 million detached houses.
The calculation for the house at Ris is from the solar company Otovo.
Aasland proposes a new measure
The Energy Commission believes that the concept of “near wind” can be a good idea. These will be smaller wind turbines in areas with little conservation value.
One of the ideas is that wind turbines can be placed along motorways. Energy Minister Terje Aasland speaks NRK that he wants to wallpaper the E18 between Oslo and Kristiansand – for 300 kilometers – with such small turbines.
According to the industry organization Fornybar Norge, there will be space for 6,000 local wind turbines along this stretch of road.
On average, each of these turbines will produce 20,000 kWh in the course of a year – which is less than an average detached house uses in a year.
In total, Energi Norge believes that these 6,000 turbines should produce 120 GWh a year – or 0.12 TWh. This means that you have to have 333 times as many wind turbines to be able to produce 40 TWh of electricity.
Or around two million local wind turbines.
To be able to accommodate so many along the roads, you will need 99,900 kilometers of road. It is more than the total length of all public roads in Norway, including national roads, county roads and municipal roads.
A Fosen solution?
Fosen Wind in Trøndelag is by far Norway’s largest wind power plant, with an annual production of around 2.7 TWh. Large parts of the facility are now in danger of having to be demolished.
A little more than 15 equivalent wind turbines are needed to produce 40 TWh.
Fosen wind seizes an area of 60 km2. In comparison, Oslo municipality is 454 km2, of which only 147 km2 is built-up.
Fosen wind park will therefore cover the most central districts in Oslo.
To produce 40 TWh according to the Fosen model, you need 900 km2, an area twice the size of Oslo municipality.
If you read the comment section, you will quickly see that many believe that setting up a wind power plant in Holmenkollen would be a good idea. Covering Oslo with wind turbines may be desirable for some.
The challenge is that the wind conditions in Oslo are nowhere near as good as at Fosen, and that the wind turbines will therefore not produce much electricity.
Europower has previously counted on what a wind turbine at the very top of Holmenkollen would be able to produce. Their conclusion was that production would have been half of the average for wind power plants in Norway. The area requirement will then be twice as large.
What about nuclear power?
New nuclear power plants of the large type normally have a capacity to produce 1400–1650 MW per reactor. Finland is now starting full production of a reactor of the new type.
The Olkilouto 3 nuclear power plant has a capacity of 1,600 MW and a theoretical annual production of 14 TWh.
We will therefore need three of these to produce 40 TWh.
More hydropower?
Norway’s most famous power plant is located in Alta, and was the most controversial hydropower development in history.
The power plant was built after a roughly 14-year-long struggle with a sky-high level of conflict and hunger strikeswhich is still making its mark in the Fosen conflict.
Alta hydropower plant has a normal production of 695 GWh a year. That is, about 0.7 TWh.
To produce 40 TWh, one thus needs 58 times the Alta hydropower plant.
More than all households and cottages in the whole country
The total consumption in all private households in Norway last year was 35 TWh, according to Elhub.
In addition, 2.3 TWh of electricity is supplied to holiday homes.
This means that the need for a surplus of 40 TWh is higher than the total electricity consumption of all households and cottages in the whole country last year.
Greater Oslo has an electricity consumption of approximately 18 TWh a year. 1.5 million people live here.
40 TWh is enough electricity to cover consumption here for two years – and still be left with more electricity than what is produced by the wind power plants at Fosen.
Full export, all year round
There has been a lot of talk about foreign cables, and in this context this is very relevant:
40 TWh is as much as we can currently export in three of the largest export cables.
If Norway had exported at full theoretical capacity to England, Germany and Denmark at the same time, in all hours throughout an entire year, it would have been possible to move approx. 39.9 TWh of electricity.
I don’t think it’s very likely
Energy experts believe that restoring a power surplus that is so large that it shuts down the power will never happen in practice. The reason is that investing in production that causes prices to fall will be very unprofitable. Nobody wants to initiate the construction of a large power plant.
The Energy Commission makes no secret of the fact that they see such a surplus as neither particularly likely, nor desirable:
“Years with a very high power surplus in Norway will, in isolation, be beneficial for Norwegian consumers, who will receive significantly lower power prices. On the other hand, years with large power surpluses will mean that parts of the potential power production in Norway are not used, but go to waste. Establishing such a large power surplus will also have significant costs in the form of natural encroachment, large investment costs and reduced public revenues.”
This is also much of the reason why the government has set up a new committee to see if there are other ways to achieve the same thing.
