Electricity

Per capita, Norway ranks number two in the world in energy consumption.  Norwegian families use almost twice the amount of electricity as Americans do.  Most of that power comes from hydroelectric sources.  All homes use portable electric heaters and have heated floors in their bathrooms and entryways.  I’m glad there’s electricity in Norway because it’s cold there in winter.  Many people supplement with wood-burning stoves because Norway’s electricity rates are so high, and they go even higher as the weather gets colder.  

One cousin told us last winter it was so cold his power bill was over a thousand dollars a month for his small house.  Yikes.  We’re lucky where we live in Norway because the radiant heat in our condo comes from hot water generated by the burning of trash.  The government supplements that heat source, so our electricity bill is thankfully, never very high.  They also run water pipes under the streets in the downtown area from this same source, so in the wintertime, it melts the snow.  It’s a good thing Norwegians are big consumers because we need lots of garbage to keep our power bill low.  Norwegians throw away an average of a thousand pounds of garbage per person, per year, which is a lot, and that number continues to rise.

Driving down roads in Norway, every once in a while, a huge door can be seen on the side of a mountain.  Chances are pretty good that a power plant sits behind that door.  Norwegians figured out that mountain lakes are a great source of hydroelectric power, so they tunneled up through the rock and the gravity fed water spins the turbines.  They thought of that one after the Germans bombed their power plants in World War II.  Now they are all neatly hidden away inside mountains scattered around Norway and impossible to detect from the air.  Clever.

The first country in the world to develop a power plant using wave energy from the ocean was Norway.  They also have several wind farms throughout the land.   Norwegians can even choose which type of power they want brewing their coffee in the morning.  Green energy costs more, however.

Norway is a huge exporter of hydroelectric power to other European countries and sometimes they sell too much then have to buy it back for a higher rate.  But last summer a friend told us that one area of Norway had so much rain that the local hydroelectric plant produced more electricity than they could sell so they just gave it away for free for three months to all their Norwegian customers.  Now there’s something that would never happen in America.  Power to the people.