While Europe saves power, consumption continues to increase in Norway. The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) expects growth of 14% by 2025.
Power consumption will increase by 18 terawatt hours in the ten-year period from 2015 to 2025, reported NVE in a presentation at Energy Norway’s winter conference on Thursday.
“We will use the power in Norway,” said Per Sanderud, NVE’s Director.
In the long run, development is more uncertain, but NVE expects power consumption to continue to increase after 2025. In 2035,consumption is estimated to be 18% above 2016.
The increase has several reasons, Sanderud explained. One of them is more powerful industrial needs, like Hydro’s new aluminum plant at Karmøy. At the same time, Norway is gaining more data centers,and these use large amounts of power.
In addition, new oil platforms will gain power from land, while more and more electric cars will find their way to garages and car parks around the country.
Oil and Energy Minister Terje Søviknes of Fremskrittsparti (Frp) said the increases are desired.
“It is a wish from our side that we will use more of the power ourselves.
It’s really a matter of how much we should process the natural resources that the power represents. The more we can earn, the better’’, he said.
In the EU as a whole, developments are in the opposite direction. Total energy consumption has fallen by 10.8% in the past ten years, compared to 2.8% in Norway. The EU’s plan is to continue the cuts until 2030.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
