Norwegian businesses have paid NOK 234 billion more for electricity in the four and a half years since the beginning of 2022 than during the corresponding period before.
This is reported by E24. They obtained figures from the Norwegian Energy Regulatory Authority (RME), which prepared calculations for the Ministry of Energy.
The calculation presumably starts in 2022 in order to continue attempting to link the high electricity prices to the war in Ukraine, which broke out in February 2022. But it is difficult to see any reason why a war in Ukraine should have any impact on the price of our domestically produced hydropower.
Electricity prices began rising significantly as early as June 2021, after the first power cable to Germany was opened in late May. This was a crisis that had been predicted by many.
A few months later, electricity prices rose sharply when the power cable to the English coast opened in the autumn of the same year. Binding agreements with the EU have put the entire Norwegian electricity market in checkmate.
But even if the calculation starts in 2022, the increase amounts to no less than 68 per cent. The result has been higher prices in almost every area, which has hit both businesses and households hard.
The Ministry of Energy stresses that there is uncertainty surrounding the figures, which were released following a request from Member of Parliament Marius Arion Nilsen (FrP).
– This is a large-scale confiscation of wealth from businesses that could instead have gone towards developing businesses and increasing competitiveness. These figures substantiate what we have said about the state becoming richer and richer and confiscating private assets, Nilsen says.
– Had this been collected in the form of straightforward taxes and duties, there would have been an outcry. I do not think people understand the extreme sums being taken from private businesses and going to the state.
– That is how the market works?
– That is how it works under the current system and uncontrolled electricity exports. But it becomes doubly wrong when you have both increased wealth tax and other increased taxes and duties, rigid rules and bureaucracy, and then the electricity bill goes through the roof on top of that. That makes for bleak prospects for Norwegian businesses.
State Secretary Snorre Erichsen Skjevrak (Labour) at the Ministry of Energy rejects the criticism from FrP.
– Where FrP increased electricity taxes, the Labour Party has reduced the electricity tax included in grid charges, resulting in lower electricity bills for businesses, he says.
