Cuts in power exports are against the rules
While the price of electricity in Southern Norway has risen to levels that Norway has never reached before, water reservoirs are at their lowest level in decades.
The crisis has led the government to announce a completely new measure: a “control mechanism” which must be limited to power exports if the degree of filling in the multi-year warehouses becomes too low.
Now Brussels is striking back strongly.
The European Commission’s spokesperson Tim McPhie reminds that Norway is part of the EEA and follows the EU’s energy legislation.
– This means that even if EU law opens up ways to protect the capacity of multi-year storages, for example through the introduction of a specific requirement for minimum filling, no decision can involve closing borders to limit the exchange of power in the internal market for electricity. says McPhie.
Stick to the plan
TV 2 has shown the EU Commission’s statement to Oil and Energy Minister Terje Lien Aasland (Ap).
He stands by the government’s plan:
– Norway, like any other country, has a responsibility to secure our power supply in uncertain times. We must have security so that we can ensure our own security of supply in the face of abnormal and unforeseen events, says Aasland.
– We will therefore develop our own control mechanism which means that when the water level falls below normal for the season and down towards a low level, exports will be limited.
Liberal parliamentary representative Ola Elvestuen believes for his part that it is good that the European Commission is so clear.
He asks the government to respond by canceling the plans.
– Well, the government must stop raising doubts about whether Norway can be trusted in energy cooperation, says Elvestuen.
Can accept savings measures
TV 2 is known for the quiet diplomacy surrounding the planned export brake during the summer.
Norwegian authorities have had meetings with both the EU institutions and countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain to discuss the matter.
The discussions have previously taken place both at official level and at a higher political level – including at Prime Minister level.
As TV 2 understands it, the position on the EU side is that there is no basis that can justify a limitation in the exchange of power.
What can still be allowed are measures to save water.
According to what TV 2 is informed, the EU side will be able to accept that Norway cuts production itself if this is necessary to prevent the important multi-year magazines from being emptied. I think measures to save scarce water resources will be understood.
But cuts in exports are something else.
Such a move would mean that the government prioritizes the national market over the European one. Then you get discrimination that will be hard to swallow in Brussels.
According to what TV 2 knows, the British side has a similar view of the matter.
Nordic warning
Earlier in August, the system operators in Denmark, Finland and Sweden also sent out a warning to Norway.
I a common press release Danish Energinet, Finnish Fingrid and Svenska Kraftnät write that they understand the need to ensure security of supply, but that they are at the same time “deeply concerned” about the plans for an export brake. “We fear that such a move could inspire other countries to consider similar restrictions”, they continue.
The three system operators have the same role in Denmark, Finland and Sweden as Statnett has in Norway. In the press release, they ask the government to drop the plan on export restrictions and reassess the situation.
Should the government take the plan seriously anyway, the EEA supervisory authority Esa can also be linked in.
– We follow the debate. We will then make an assessment when it is something concrete, says Esa’s communications manager Jarle Hetland to TV 2.
Energy regulator gives green light
Exactly what the general management mechanism should look like is still up for discussion in the government.
The overall plan is for the mechanism to work in such a way that the capacity for power export through the foreign cables is limited in situations where the water level in the perennial reservoirs falls to a low or critically low level. But the government has not taken a decision on how much export capacity must be limited and how low the fill rate must be before the control mechanism kicks in.
In the meantime, several professional investigations have been launched.
One of them has been completed by the energy regulator RME. RME’s preliminary conclusion is that Norway cannot limit exports for price reasons, but that it can be rum in the EEA rules to limit exports for reasons of security of supply.
– If a restriction is to be legal, it must be suitable for better security of supply, and it must be proportionate, said energy director Kjetil Lund when the RME investigation was presented last week.
But the energy director also has objections:
– If a possible Norwegian export restriction leads to countermeasures from another country, the effect may be that our security of supply is weakened, rather even strengthened.