What would it take for European electricity prices not to affect Norwegian electricity prices – without cutting foreign cables?
The Energy Commission was able to answer that when they submitted their report earlier this winter:
“In the case of very high energy surpluses, bottlenecks abroad will ‘lock up’ energy in Norway, and Norwegian prices will fall significantly below average prices in Europe. The results of the NVE model show such a decoupling of the Norwegian energy price if there is An excess of energy about 40 terawatt hours» wrote the Energy Commission.
And this ‘fixation’ is why northern Norway prices hit a record low last year, at the same time that there was a crisis in southern Norway.
According to Statnett, Norway wants it deficit over four years.
How much is 40 terawatt hours really?
But what does it really mean to have an energy surplus of 40 TWh? It’s a hard number to accept.
We know that a plate oven uses about 1 kWh. It is usually the household electricity consumption 11-30,000 kWh per year.
Below we will try to explain how much 40 TWh is – 40 Billions kWh – actually up to.
You will use rooftops
Several parties, including the Labor Party and the Conservative Party, are promoting solar power as an important new energy investment, also in the winter country of Norway.
Rooftop solar cells are the most common form. There is sometimes a very large difference in the size of the production potential. Both the angle of the roof and the general sun conditions and where you live in the country.
A randomly selected detached house in Ris, Oslo has space for 34 solar panels on the most suitable part of the roof. It will provide an annual output of 12,000 kWh per year and will cost around NOK 280,000 to install.
To produce 40 TWh of electricity, 3.33 million such homes would be needed. Norway has 1.3 million detached homes.
The house in Ris was accounted for by the solar energy company Otovo.
Aasland proposes a new procedure
The Energy Authority thinks the concept of “nearby winds” could be a good idea. These will be smaller wind turbines in areas of little protection value.
One idea is that wind turbines could be located along highways. Energy Minister Terje Asland speaks NRK He wants an E18 wallpaper between Oslo and Kristiansand – a distance of 300 km – with such small turbines.
According to industry organization Fornybar Norge, there will be space for 6,000 domestic wind turbines along this stretch of road.
On average, each of these turbines will produce 20,000 kWh over the course of a year – which is less than the average detached house uses in a year.
In total, Energi Norge believes these 6,000 turbines should produce 120 gigawatt-hours annually — or 0.12 TWh. This means that you would have to have 333 times as many wind turbines to be able to produce 40 TWh of electricity.
Or about two million domestic wind turbines.
To be able to take so much along the roads, you would need 99,900 km of road. It’s more than The total length of all public roads in Norway, including national roads, county roads and municipal roads.
Fossen’s solution?
Vossen wind In Trøndelag is Norway’s largest wind power plant, with an annual output of about 2.7 TWh. Large portions of the facility are now at risk of demolition.
Just over 15 equivalent wind turbines are needed to produce 40 TWh.
Füssen winds take up an area of 60 km2. In comparison, Oslo municipality has an area of 454 km², of which only 147 km² is built up.
The Fosen wind park will thus cover most of the central areas of Oslo.
To produce 40 TWh according to Fosen’s model, you need 900 square kilometres, an area twice the size of Oslo municipality.
If you read the comments section, you will quickly see that many think the Holmenkollen wind farm would be a good idea. Covering Oslo with wind turbines may be desirable for some.
The challenge is that wind conditions in Oslo are nowhere near as good as Vossen’s, so wind turbines won’t produce as much electricity.
Europower previously relied on what is a wind turbine at the top of Holmenkollen He will be able to produce. Their conclusion was that the production would have been half of the average output of wind power plants in Norway. Then the area requirements will be twice as large.
What about nuclear power?
New large-type nuclear power plants usually have a capacity of 1400-1650 megawatts per reactor. Finland has now started full production of a new type reactor.
The Olkilouto 3 nuclear power plant has a capacity of 1,600 MW and a theoretical annual production of 14 TWh.
So we would need three of these to produce 40 TWh.
More hydropower?
Located in Alta, Norway’s most famous power plant has been the most controversial hydroelectric power plant in history.
The power plant was built next Almost 14 years of struggle with a high level of conflict and hunger strikeswhich still leaves its mark in the Fussen struggle.
The Alta Hydroelectric Power Plant has an annual production capacity of 695 GWh. That’s about 0.7 terawatt hours.
To produce 40 TWh, one would need 58 times more than the Alta Hydroelectric Power Plant.
More than all the houses and cottages in the whole country
Total consumption in all private homes in Norway last year was 35 TWh, according to Love.
In addition, 2.3 TWh of electricity is supplied to the vacation homes.
This means that the need for a surplus of 40 TWh is higher than the total electricity consumption of all households and homes across the country last year.
Greater Oslo’s electricity consumption is about 18 TWh per year. 1.5 million people live here.
40 TWh of electricity is enough to cover consumption here for two years – and there is still more electricity than the Füssen wind farms produce.
Complete export, all year round
There has been a lot of talk about foreign cables, and this in this context is very important:
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, at all hours over the course of an entire year, it would have been possible to move approximately. 39.9 terawatt hours of electricity.
I don’t think it’s very likely
Energy experts believe that restoring energy surpluses so large that they shut down power will practically never happen. The reason is that investment in production which causes prices to fall will be very unprofitable. No one wants to embark on the construction of a large power plant.
The Energy Commission makes no secret of the fact that it considers such an excess to be particularly unlikely and undesirable:
“Years with large energy surpluses in Norway will, in isolation, benefit Norwegian consumers, who will receive significantly lower energy prices. On the other hand, years with large energy surpluses will mean that parts of potential energy production in Norway is not being used, it is wasted. Creating such a large surplus of energy will also have significant costs in the form of natural encroachment, significant investment costs, and a decrease in public revenues.”
This is also a big reason why the government has set up a new committee to see if there are other ways to achieve the same thing.
Also read: The government with the seizure of new power – this is how support will now be
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