Land of Opportunity, Northern Norway. With unique and world-leading comparative advantages. With world-class industrial expertise and natural resources. Never before has Norway, and especially Northern Norway, shown greater interest in growth and investment in the land-based industry. Start. We have to go back to Ekofisk Field in 1969, to find similar adventures in Norway. My thoughts for the weekend today are to give you an insight into the scale of opportunities we have for growth and prosperity in Norway, with Northern Norway as an engine of exports and welfare income for society as a whole. In Mo i Rana, you can feel this optimism on your body. When I studied at Kongsvegen VGS, in the early 2000s, optimism wasn’t quite the same at Rana. Fortunately, things have changed.
the reason! We have the lowest energy prices in Europe, and sometimes in the world. Yes, believe it or not. This contributes to the fact that the world’s leading players, investors, knowledge communities, entrepreneurs and founders have seen our part of the country. It has moved at a pace the world has never seen before. Freyr Battery was founded in 2017. Today it is working in full swing on the site of the ironworks, initially with plans to invest more than 17 billion NOK. But this is only a small part of the industrial plans expected in northern Norway. Players are looking north, and the main reason for that is low energy prices and the fact that we have 100% renewable energy in our energy mix.
we produce In northern Norway about 28 TWh per year averages. To illustrate the order of magnitude, this corresponds to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 1.4 million households in Norway. While the total consumption today in northern Norway is about 21 TWh. Corresponding electricity consumption of about one million households. This gives us an excess of power in the north. The profit ranges between 5-7 TWh per year. Or put it simply, the electricity consumption of the entire city of Bodo increased from 5 to 7 times in the case of “idle energy”. Moreover, today northern Sweden produces large amounts of surplus wind energy, which leads to lower prices here. In fact, electricity was priced on average between 10 øre – 30 øre per kWh last year, and in fact sometimes almost free. Historically low! Until now.
industrial facilities It comes on a conveyor belt in northern Norway. More than 100 industrial enterprises are under planning, the analysis we prepared at BRUS shows. The size of these foundations is so enormous that they have caused some small earthquakes, initially in favor of the positive. These institutions will turn communities in northern Norway upside down, with the opportunity that this presents. It will be Mo i Rana before and after. Mosjøen and Narvik are the same. As long as industrial firms are guaranteed strength, the energy contracts that make it profitable to produce goods and services from the North.
but this It also means that our profits are slowly but surely being eaten up. The fact is that only with the specific establishments in Northern Norway, the profit that we enjoy is gone. Doing excercise. Analysis by SINTEF Energy & Energy Industrial Cluster, Energi I Nord. Then the results show that our surplus power will disappear in a few years. They created two scenarios. A scenario where the green shift continues rapidly. And one where the green shift continues at a normal pace. In the quick scenario, the analysis shows that our surplus is actually gone already in 2026-2027.
go fast, that Statnett, three weeks ago, had put a complete end to all new establishments north of Tysfjord. why? Yes, since there are many plans, it is impractical and technically sound to allocate more energy reserves. To give you a picture of the scale of all these industrial charts. Subsequently, in the area between Tysfjord and Helgeland, an order was placed for reservation and power delivery of approximately 5,000 megawatts (MW). To illustrate the order of magnitude of this figure, this corresponds to the same amount of electricity consumption 40 times the total annual consumption of Bodo City. If you jump back three paragraphs, you’ll see that in the whole of northern Norway we only produce 28 in an average year.
NarvikI know we’re north of Tysfjord. In the area north of Tysfjord to Varanger there are industrial schemes of more than 3000 MW. In other words, industrial plans with large needs such as total energy production entirely in Northern Norway. Over half of these plans between Narvik and Varanger were realized over the next five years by the industry. In total in northern Norway, we have plans for more than 8000 MW from Helgeland in the south to Varanger in the north. You don’t need to do rocket science to see that this computation will have no value.
Many industrial schemes, it will not be possible to achieve. But a lot will come of it. We have unique opportunities that we must manage well and take care of. We must believe in the welfare society in the future, and make a strong choice we must create more, so that we have more to distribute. We have to make some uncomfortable choices moving forward. Because it’s not just about creating new industrial jobs in northern Norway. It’s also about securing what’s already there. Freyr needs a low, predictable power price. If you now think that the lack of wind power development on land and at sea will lead to lower electricity prices for people in northern Norway, that would be a huge mistake.
It’s urgent with the production of more renewable energy. And I would be gray and hairless, if the politicians in Parliament and the government did not take this more seriously. At NRK2 on Wednesday, we heard Erna Solberg, (H) Bjørnar Skjæran, (Ap) Dagfinn Olsen (FrP) and Arild Hermstad (MdG) talk about it. None of them take this seriously, it seems? Hermstad will improve energy efficiency, Skjæran will focus on offshore wind, Solberg believes the sun is shining, and Olsen will upgrade and expand hydropower.
The challenge in northern Norway is that these energy sources provide a minimum of new energy in the North in the short term. According to the Northern Norway energy producers (who also own the company I lead), we will hardly be able to achieve 1TwH of new energy in Northern Norway by modernizing and expanding our existing hydropower. Solar energy has good potential, but it is expensive and requires large areas if we want to create large quantities. If Blastr Green Steel’s solar energy ensures the power they need, almost the entire municipality of Fauske will have to have solar panels, he explains. Offshore wind energy will contribute. But we won’t see offshore wind turbines off our coast until 2030. The full national potential for energy efficiency in buildings and industry is about 10 TWh. Our elected representatives must deal with the facts.
The choice must be made. Onshore wind power is by far the most profitable and cost-effective energy source today. It’s the cheapest power source to build, the fastest to install, and the one that delivers as much volume as you wish. The project could contribute to Fauske more than 4 times the electricity consumption of the city of Bodø. Or roughly as much as the excess power in the North we have today, if you like. We must produce more energy, and we must invest in all energy sources. “There are no silver bullets.” But Earth’s wind energy, on the other hand, is the most efficient source even today, and so we have to dare to make some choices. We must use the energy we produce for industry in the North, and we must establish production where there has already been interference, with low environmental interventions. Without more energy production. Pick up the snap muzzle, and then the industrial adventure is over. Good weekend!
Written by Elnar Holmen, General Manager Bodøregionens Utviklingsselskap – BRUS
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