All over the country, business operators are queuing up to connect to, or upgrade access to, the electricity grid. Some will expand their business, others will become emission-free. In all cases, it requires more power. One of them is the fish feed producer BioMar in Vesterålen. They are one of many who have been refused by Statnett after applying for increased access to electricity. – If the refusal remains, it means that we will not be able to electrify the factory as we have planned. This means that we are not reaching our own targets for decarbonisation, says managing director Håvard Jørgensen at BioMar. At the beginning of January this year, Statnett sent out refusals to all network companies north of Ofoten for connection to the electricity grid – in total over 40 applications. Among other things, Statnett has said no to new aquaculture facilities and new industry along the entire coast. All over the country, industry is queuing up to connect to the power grid – many of them in Northern Norway Everything from fish farms, seafood production, electric car chargers and slaughterhouses to hydrogen production, charging facilities and data centers need enormous amounts of power Just in this region alone they need over 1400 megawatts That is equivalent to the same power like 1.4 million of the panel oven you have at home on the wall. They justify the refusals with the fact that there is no free capacity in the power grid and that a connection cannot be provided until more power is produced, and the grid is reinforced. When not the green shift For BioMar, the calculation is simple. If they don’t get electricity for the green transition, they can look a long way to becoming climate neutral. The managing director of BioMar is afraid that already established companies will not meet the climate targets. Photo: Graham / Graham – We must have a 42 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2030. Then we have a goal of net zero emissions by 2050. If the refusal stands, it will be difficult to reach those goals, adds Jørgensen. BioMar will produce close to 300,000 tonnes of feed and is the cornerstone company at Myre in Vesterålen. The rejections set the wheels in motion both for local small industries such as cod slaughterhouses and farming, but also for the big plans of Aker Horizons in Narvik and Ammoniakkfabrikk in Hammerfest. Influencing green initiatives Eirik Frantzen is CEO of Nordkraft, a power company in Narvik. Together with Aker Horizons, Nordkraft itself has received a refusal of more than 1,000 megawatts (MW). Aker’s major green investment in Narvik is one of Norway’s largest green initiatives, and will, according to plan, create a significant number of jobs. CEO of Nordkraft, Eirik Frantzen believes that it is time for criteria for the allocation of power. Photo: Frida Brembo / news In collaboration with Nordkraft, the company wants to start production of green steel, hydrogen and batteries, a venture that could cost more than NOK 50 billion. But to make that happen, a lot of power is needed, so much that they will be able to use up the entire day’s power surplus in northern Norway. They have already been allocated 420 MW. 7–8 times the power Narvik municipality uses today. Should prioritize harder Frantzen believes the order and priorities in the allocation of power must be discussed, and he calls for political action. – Of course, we must develop more renewable energy. I believe that we currently have a surplus of 50 per cent in the north. But most of it is reserved, much of it for projects that will not provide jobs or benefit society, says Frantzen. He then refers to data centers that have moved their operations north due to low electricity prices. – We are in a dilemma where data centers are allocated power before cornerstone companies in Vesterålen. We cannibalize each other and we have to do something about that, says Frantzen. Because Statnett’s principle is first come first serve and maturity in the projects. Companies in the north are screaming for more electricity. But Statnett says no. Photo: Frode Dorp, Helgeland Kraft – There are no subjective criteria, no industrial policy and no assessment of usefulness in Statnett’s allocations, says Frantzen. Statnett believes that the ministry should consider prioritizing capacity. Today, it is required to follow the “first come, first served” principle, says communications manager Martha Hagerup Nilson at Statnett. – This means that capacity is allocated without emphasizing social goals of any kind. Indirect priority is thus given to those industries that can quickly establish new businesses. Although it is not Statnett’s task to set political priorities, Nilson says that they have made it clear to the authorities that there is a need for prioritisation. In Statnett’s consultation response to the Power Network Committee we write; Statnett believes the ministry should consider prioritizing capacity. And that the absence of priorities implies a prioritization of those who “win” in the current system. – In Statnett’s consultation response to the Power Network Committee we write; Statnett believes the ministry should consider prioritizing capacity. Martha Hagerup Nilson in Statnett. Photo: Jøte Toftaker / news Must be discussed Today, Northern Norway north of Ofoten consumes about 1,500 megawatts (MW). According to Energiwatch.no, Statnett has allocated 1,150 MW to new industry and upgrades. Including electrification of Melkøya. What Statnett has now refused is a further 1,600 MW. – If we are to produce even more without discussing how to use the eight terawatts we already have in surplus, then we will become an energy plantation, says Eirik Frantzen in Nordkraft. This is how consumption and production of electricity is calculated: First, two key terms: – Megawatts is power that is fully installed – Terrawatt hours is production and consumption An example of how to calculate production: Øyfjellet wind farm on Helgeland in Nordland has a license for 400 MW. They annually produce around 1320 GWh, or 1.32 TWh. The figure 400 megawatts refers to how much capacity (power) the wind farm can deliver to the power grid when the park is in full operation. To find out how much electricity the plant produces per year, we must multiply the capacity by the number of hours the wind farm is in full operation. number of megawatts x number of operating hours = megawatt hours If Øyfjellet is on average in full operation at 400 megawatts for 4,000 hours per year, you can calculate that it will have produced 1,600,000 megawatt hours of electricity. This corresponds to 1.6 terawatt hours of electricity. Wind farms often have somewhat less than 4,000 hours of full operation per year and are also not predictable. Statnett therefore uses a factor of 0.1. This means that 400 MW of new wind produces 40 MW of new power. Calculate consumption: If we look at Aker and Nordkraft’s allocated power, they have been allocated 420 megawatts. That means continuous capacity from the power grid. If the industry produces at full capacity around the clock for the year’s 8,760 hours, the plants will use 3,679,200 megawatt hours of electricity. This corresponds to 3679.2 gigawatt hours, or 3.6792 terawatt hours. One megawatt hour equals 1,000 kilowatt hours One gigawatt hour equals one million kilowatt hours One terawatt hour equals one billion kilowatt hours. 1,000 watts = 1 kilowatt 1,000 kilowatts = 1 megawatt 1,000 megawatts = 1 gigawatt 1,000 gigawatts = 1 terawatt Power shortage In November last year, Statnett presented an analysis showing that Norway could have a power deficit as early as 2027, they point out that the reason is that consumption increases and too little power is developed. Storting representative Bård Ludvig Thorheim (H) sits on the Energy Committee. He tells news that there needs to be further progress in the power licensing process. Storting representative Bård Ludvig Thorheim criticizes the government for taking too long. He believes that it must be faster to build out more power. Photo: Benjamin Fredriksen / news The government is taking too long – We must build out more power and it must go faster. It doesn’t have to take that long to develop more wind farms, says Thorheim. He agrees with Frantzen that something should be done with Statnett’s allocation criteria and refers to the Strømnettutvalget, which last autumn presented a report showing that some political criteria should be set for the power allocations to have a societal benefit. Northern Norway had the cheapest electricity in Europe in 2022, which attracts foreign players. Nakstad rapporten: The power grid committee was established by the government in June 2021 to investigate the development of the power grid in Norway. The committee assessed three overarching themes: – Measures to reduce the time it takes to develop and license new network facilities. – Principles for safeguarding a socio-economic development of the power grid at a time of great uncertainty about consumption trends. – Possible improvements in the system with affiliation obligations. The report from the power grid committee/Nakstad report was handed over to the government in June 2022. Source: regjeringen.no – We need clear political criteria and I expect the government to do something about that. If it takes time, the Conservative Party must consider putting forward proposals, says Thorheim. – It is also just as urgent to solve the bottlenecks we have in our network in Northern Norway. There is a lot of power that is not delivered due to poor network capacity, says Thorheim. No specifically Norwegian ban Last spring, the governing parties said no to a proposal in the Storting to ban the mining of cryptocurrency. They wanted to avoid a specific Norwegian crypto ban, and believed that it was fundamentally problematic to discriminate against data centers based on a politically defined societal benefit. FLOWING OVER: At Storvannet in Håkvikdalen in Narvik there was so much water last autumn that the reservoirs were unable to remove everything, at the same time there were empty reservoirs in the south. started work on a revised data center strategy, he told news: – The power situation is very demanding, and cryptomining takes up important power resources. Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum also pointed to increased mining of cryptocurrency in Norway when he discontinued the electricity tax discount for all data centers. – We need this power for the community, said the finance minister. Must be done in parallel In December, a cross-party decision was made in Nordland County Council to introduce just such a ban. It is expected that the government will not come up with a ban, but measures to reduce crypto mining. State Secretary in the Ministry of Oil and Energy, Elisabeth Sæther, writes in response to news that they know there is a large demand from players for quick connection to the power grid. The ministry does not answer directly whether they will do anything about Statnett’s allocation criteria, but points out that the Strømnettutvalget recommended continuing with objective and non-discriminatory criteria for the allocation of capacity.
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Companies in Northern Norway do not receive electricity from Statnett – news Nordland
