Comment by sgc
14 hours ago
Obviously the presumably large amount of money spent to interconnect could have been spent adding local production and storage. It would be a waste of money if there was a reasonable path to local energy independence that was neglected.
A significant proportion of Norway's domestic energy production is hydro, which comes with it's own "built in" storage up to the capacity of the dams, so Norway already has a very significant storage capacity.
Estimates suggests a storage capacity of 87TWh of storage in hydro reservoirs, compared to production capacity in recent years between 146 and 157 TWh, and a theoretical production capacity of ~309TWh (I don't know the basis for that - I'd imagine peak production at all the plants, but I doubt that could ever happen in reality, so the 146-157TWh based on real production are better...)
Compare that to Norwegian electricity consumption of 124 TWh in 2020.
Of course, since so much of Norways total electricity production is hydro, large storage is necessary, as the hydro supply is highly seasonal, based on e.g. things like the amount of melting snow in the mountains in spring.