NVE warns that grid rents will rise sharply next year due to record high electricity prices and investments in the electricity grid.
–
When the electricity is transported from A to B, some electricity disappears on the road, so-called transmission loss. And when the power is deer, this loss becomes more costly than in a normal year.
The grid loss, the difference in the amount of electricity that is produced and fed into the grid and the amount of electricity that is delivered, must be covered by the grid company, which in turn forwards the bill to the customers.
– We expect that there will be a significant price increase for customers. And it is completely independent of the new pricing model for grid rent that comes into force on 1 January, says NVE’s Tore Langset, acting director of the regulatory authority for energy, to VG.
19.3 billion
NVE decides how much the grid companies are allowed to charge to deliver the electricity to your door, and this revenue limit is currently estimated at 19.3 billion next year or up 12 percent compared to the 17.2 billion that have been adopted and notified, respectively. for last year and this year.
– The first and most important reason for this is that power prices are expected to be much higher next year than they were expected to be at the beginning of this year. And a significant part of the grid companies’ costs is the purchase of power to cover the transmission loss. That amounts to NOK 1.1 billion of the increase, says Langset.
– The second reason is that interest rates and inflation are higher than expected this year compared with the same period last year, in addition to a good deal of investment in the electricity grid. Interest and increased capital costs amount to around NOK 800 million, he adds.
Elvia increases 6-7 percent
But even if the income limit is estimated to increase by 12 per cent next year, this does not mean that the grid rent will increase correspondingly.
– It depends on the grid rent of the individual company. Some may have already taken into account increased prices in the current grid rent. We can therefore not say that the grid rent in all companies will increase as much as the income limit, but we believe that there will be a significant increase, says Langset.
Elvia, Norway’s largest grid company with 950,000 customers, says that their grid rent will increase by six to seven percent next year.
– In a normal year, we lose around 150 million kroner due to electricity that is lost on the road. When power prices are as enormous as now, we expect to lose approx. one billion kroner this year. Therefore, we will increase the price by six to seven percent or around 3 øre per kWh after the turn of the year to make up for the loss from 2021, says Elvia’s information manager Morten Schau to VG.
Elvia’s grid rent this year is 46 øre per KWh.
–
