The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has the following story:
Norwegian and a German power supplier are in dialogue.
A few key points:
1) Norway is not a member of the EU.
2) Norway has – besides oil – lots and lots of hydroelectric power – and more could be made.
3) You could – theoretically – connect Norway and Germany directly, but it would seem cheaper to have a landline through Denmark.
The object is clearly to use the Norwegian water power as a regulator.
The recent firing of German Environment Minister Röttgen Fired makes more sense in light of this development.
“Green” energy is fine – but has been a bit overemphasized. What Angela Merkel apparently couldn’t get through to him was the big picture! Merkel doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
The obvious solution would be a connection through Denmark.
Switzerland (and Luxemburg) has for 100 years made tons of money on
rail transit traffic – with almost no cost. It would be interesting if
Denmark could pull the same thing off with electricity.
If I recall correctly: Then the Danish budget for an extension through Jutland with HVDC is about 10 bio. DKK – or 1 1/3 bio. EUR.
The figure mentioned is between 1½ -2 bio. EUR for each of the three planned connections.
The Norwegian Secretary for Energy Ola Borten Moe and the German Secretary for Economy Philipp Rösler met and continued the discussions that have been going on since the 1990’ies.
Money for the investment does not seem to be a problem.
It will be interesting to see how that develops. The article has a rather distant time perspective of 2018 for the first. Maybe some coordination could be useful?
