Comment by kragen
13 hours ago
Does that mean Norway is making a huge amount of money exporting electricity over those interconnections?
13 hours ago
Does that mean Norway is making a huge amount of money exporting electricity over those interconnections?
Yes. But that is money the consumers don't see.
About 90% of Norway's 40 GW energy production (mostly hydro) is state owned. By exporting energy and thereby getting other countries to pay, the money literally goes to the norwegian people. Not directly into their bank accounts, but into their govt budgets, which they later pay less in taxes.
Norwegian power generation is sized for the domestic market, so tax income from selling excess is marginal at best. The power bills however have indeed crept quite a way up. This was especially noticeable in the first winter of the Russian invasion, when the Nordics had to subsidize the bill that suddenly dropped on short-sighted German energy policy.
Right, but people tend to be oblivious to anything that's not on their bank accounts.
2 replies →
Their tax rate is already pretty high. But yes it effectively sponsors their entire energy infrastructure
Do they actually pay less in taxes because of this? I’m not arguing. That is great and I would appreciate if you could provide a source for me to read.
1 reply →
There are government subsidies for consumers to either have a fixed price or a price cap on electricity in Norway as a political response to the increase. This would be harder to pull off if not most of the profits from export didn’t land in the public sector (either taxes or government owned energy companies).
Norway has experience circumventing the resource curse/Dutch disease with undersea oil. Hopefully they'll manage it this time too.