The Labor Party (AP), the Center Party (SP), and the Socialist Left Party (SV) warn that they want to introduce a full electricity fee for data centers that create/mine cryptocurrency.
Thus, the stage is set for a clash if the red-greens win the election, the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) writes.
In 2018, the same proposal was adopted by the Norwegian parliament (Storting), but after strong objections from the industry, the government backtracked.
While ordinary households, many companies, and the public sector pay an electricity tax of 16.69 øre per kilowatt-hour, the industry has a reduced electricity tax of around 0.55 øre per kilowatt-hour. This also applies to data centers that extract cryptocurrency, which requires large amounts of power.
The SV, the SP, and the AP now announce that they want to remove the subsidy.
Not a priority
“Using our pure Norwegian power for a distinct speculative object such as cryptocurrency is not what we want to prioritize,” the AP’s Espen Barth Eide stated.
Leader of ICT-Norway Liv Freihow believes that politicians shouldn’t set different framework conditions to data centers based on what they do.
“It quickly becomes a very subjective question,” she said.
Crypto entrepreneur Kjetil Hove Pettersen believes that removing the subsidy will be destructive for the data center industry and the incentives for foreign capital to enter Norway.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayFinance
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