Despite the fact that the state has spent close to NOK 50 billion on electricity support for households and businesses this year, the high prices are a burden for many. The Labor Party and the Center Party have had to spend a lot of time explaining why electricity costs both NOK 4, 5 and 6 per kilowatt-hour, despite the fact that it costs 10-12 øre to produce electricity in Norway. Now Sp’s parliamentary leader Marit Arnstad outlines what measures the government must look at in order to change the system itself. The government must find out if: prices can be set in a different way in the power market. it is possible to introduce a “two-price model”, where the foreign cables become a separate price range. the export cables to Denmark are to be renewed when they expire in 2026. STUPER: The opinion polls this autumn have been heavy reading for the Center Party’s leadership duo Marit Arnstad and Trygve Slagsvold Vedum. Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB – Pricing should be changed Above all, Arnstad will look at how pricing is done in the power market. – Today it is the case that the most expensive energy source sets the price for all other energy sources. Then hydropower becomes very expensive. This is a pricing that should be changed, if possible, asserts Arnstad. The SP veteran, who has a past as oil and energy minister, also advocates investigating whether it is possible to create a new price area. The aim is to protect Norway more against “price contagion” from high electricity prices in Europe. – The question is whether it is possible to have different pricing for domestic consumption and export of power abroad. This can happen, for example, by establishing a separate price range around the foreign cables, she says. Both SV and Frp have previously proposed precisely this. Arnstad believes the government should now consider whether this is practically and legally possible to implement. At the same time, she points out that the EU has now intervened in the market by putting a ceiling on the gas price: – Then we have to ask ourselves whether we can’t also implement changes in the market. Because Norway has become too exposed to the European market, Arnstad believes: – Then we have to ask whether we should renew the cables to Denmark in 2026 or whether we should take this power away from foreign exports and rather ensure that the power flows to the domestic market. – We have to think carefully about Energy analyst Marius Holm Rennesund in Thema consulting points to several conditions that make it difficult to intervene in the market with political regulation. And he has no doubt that more regulation will make the market less efficient: – Yes, it will without a doubt. Building up a huge capacity that you need for one in ten or one in fifteen years is a bad use of money. An integrated market with other countries, on the other hand, will increase efficiency and reduce costs, he points out. – Does that mean that prices will then be higher, with more regulations? – They can be that for periods. But it’s hard to say. If you set a maximum price, that is what you want to pay, but the system costs can increase, because you have to create a system that has an excess capacity. Rennesund does not believe that there are simple steps that can be taken to reduce price contagion. – Then we would have already done it with the price spikes we have seen now. That is part of the challenge here – it is a complex and weather-dependent system in the Nordics. A “top price system” may be theoretically possible to create, but Rennesund sees several objections. – You have to do it in a way that in that case results in lower domestic prices. Then you also have to remember that it is important for us that we can import. It is not certain that we will get imports in the periods we need them, if we create our own price ranges there, he says. A more political regulation will have to be assessed against EU/EEA legal conditions. And the EU’s price ceiling on gas is set so high that it “affects the market little”, according to Rennesund. Cutting the cable to Denmark can reduce price contagion somewhat, he believes. – But we will still be dependent on the prices on the continent, through other cable connections we have. – Violation of the EEA agreement State Secretary in the Ministry of Oil and Energy, Amund Vik from Ap, says that both in Europe and Norway they discuss how the market works given that prices have become so high and that gas often sets the price. However, Vik believes that a solution with power ranges with different prices is not possible. – To make that happen, we have to limit the flow of power abroad and that would be a breach of the EEA agreement, says Vik.
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This is how Sp-toppen will solve the electricity crisis – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
