Advertisement

Today in Norway For Members

Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday 

Frazer Norwell
Frazer Norwell - [email protected]
Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday 
Find out what's going on in Norway on Thursday with The Local's short roundup of important news. Pictured is the Oslofjord. Photo by Franz Wender on Unsplash

Expert cautions against electricity support for businesses, Sweden profiting from affordable energy in north Norway, a surprising item commonly dumped in the Oslofjord, plus other news from Norway on Thursday. 

Advertisement

Sweden profiting from cheap Norwegian energy

Sweden is profiting from a large disparity in energy prices in Norway by buying electricity from northern regions and then exporting it back to southern Norway, where prices have hit record levels this summer, public broadcaster NRK reports. 

"People scream about exports from the south, but it is actually the northern Norwegian power that has been exported," Tor Reier Lilleholt, energy analysis manager at Volue Insight, told NRK. 

"It is often the case that power is exported from northern Norway to northern Sweden and imported from southern Sweden to southern Norway, and lately, it has at least been like that," Ann Myhrer Østenby from the Norwegian Directorate of Water Resources and Energy told NRK. 

From January to July, 4.51 Terawatt-hours (TWh), or 4.5 trillion watts, were sent from Norway to Sweden, while Sweden exported 3.67 TWh to Norway. 

Advertisement

Norway cannot send electricity, which is much cheaper in the north, to the south because the country lacks the capacity and infrastructure to send large amounts to where the prices are typically higher.

More than 100 electric scooters dumped in the Oslofjord

Fjord Cleanup, which aims to limit pollution and littering in the Oslofjord, has said that they have already recovered ten tonnes of rubbish this year, local paper Avisa Oslo writes. 

Among the waste, they have recovered 108 electric scooters dumped in the fjord. 

Fjord Cleanup is a volunteer group that gathers once a week to dive for rubbish in the Oslo Fjord, something they have been doing for six years. 

Expert warns against electricity measures for businesses

Small and medium-sized businesses may soon be able to claim support to help cope with high electricity prices, but one expert has warned that this can have an adverse effect, NRK reports.

"The only way to get through this is to reduce consumption among businesses and consumers. Then the prices have to go up," Niels-Henrik von der Fehr, an economics professor at the University of Oslo, told NRK. 

The professor explained that more economic support to deal with rising bills could lead to electricity rationing this winter. 

"This means that electricity consumption will be greater than it would otherwise be if you had to pay the full price. In the worst case, it could mean that there will be rationing for the winter because we don't save as much as we should when there is a shortage of electricity," he said. 

Oslo ranked bottom for public toilets

Oslo has finished bottom in a survey carried out by the newspaper Aftenposten which ranked the availability of public toilets in north European capitals. 

Measured per square kilometre, Oslo has a coverage of 0.17 toilets. The figure for Copenhagen is 1.7. Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin also come out better than Oslo

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also