– Have had nightmares – NRK Vestfold and Telemark – Local news, TV and radio

Power has become a scarce commodity. Electricity has become more expensive, and at the same time there is a fierce battle for access to it.

Around 80 companies are currently established in Herøya industrial park. Together, they use around 200 megawatts.

Some of these companies want to expand their operations or electrify their operations. And a handful of players are queuing up to establish themselves. They need a total of around 400 megawatts.

– That is the big challenge in this area. We are completely full, there is a long queue. And it can take a long time for them to get power, says managing director Sverre Gotaas in the industrial park.

There is a lot at stake. In reality, access to electricity can potentially mean several hundred million kroner in value creation and hundreds of jobs for the companies that are prioritized.

– How is it for you, as the manager of this entire industrial park, to see that actors who knock on the door cannot be let in?

– That means we have to find other players who don’t need so much electricity, says Gotaas.

In the industrial park, between five and ten companies are queuing for electricity, according to Gotaas. Now he fears the increase.

– Very demanding

Thea Øverli is major customer contact at the local network company Lede and responsible for the queue in Vestfold and Telemark.

She is the first to meet the companies that want access to the power grid. And she will assess how mature the various projects are and then send them on to Statnett, which will make a final decision.

– It is very demanding. After all, we have become a somewhat involuntary setting of conditions for industrial development in our region, she says to NRK.

Øverli points out that electricity has not previously been an obstacle to developing a new or existing industry. But now it’s different.

She talks about the “frustration and despair” of companies who think they will be connected to the internet in a few years, but then are told that they may have to wait ten years.

– I’ve had nightmares about queuing and reserving network capacity, she says with a smile.

Nevertheless, she has several times had to reject business owners who want to establish themselves. And if they ask for more than five megawatts, she has to put them in a queue.

Ask the politicians for help

At the local online company, Øverli came up with the idea of ​​categorizing companies and projects according to “maturity”. She thus contributed to developing the maturity principle which is used today to decide whether a company should get access to electricity or not.

But Øverli believes the consequences of the priorities she and Statnett make are so great that they cannot be left to them.

– As an online company, we neither can nor will we prioritize between customers. We believe that it is the politician’s task to do as elected representatives, she says.

– They have to come in and make the hard choices that we cannot make, about who will get electricity, when it has become a scarce resource nationally.

Looking at maturity

But Energy Minister Terje Aasland (Ap) rejects that the government has left the responsibility for choosing which projects will receive electricity to the grid companies and Statnett.

He points out that the maturity of the projects is crucial.

– We have chosen to create these maturity criteria. It is a good tool for us to sort between those who are ready to invest and ready to use power, and those who are not, says Aasland to NRK.

– We have said in the maturity criteria that, other things being equal, existing business must be prioritized and have priority in that system. I think that’s right, the minister states.

– In addition, we have also expanded the possibility of using the capacity in the network. We have said that it should be utilized to the maximum in the time we are in, and that also means that more people now get connected than before, explains Aasland.

Important for emission cuts

Gotaas in the industrial park understand very well that the politicians do not want to come in and prioritize:

– It is a politically very complicated question to decide who we should bet on, and who should get electricity, he says.

He believes the politicians are hiding behind arguments that they are not the ones who should decide which industry will survive and which will not.

– Mright now, much of today’s industry is sitting and being blocked, because they are not getting the power they need.

Gotaas points out that emission cuts must necessarily come by electrifying more of today’s industry.

– We can’t cut something we don’t have. We have to start where we are. And then the companies that are already in operation must be given the opportunity to be electrified. Then we cut CO₂.