The price is right... in Norway

The rising cost of energy in Europe over the course of the last couple of months has created enormous challenges on industries that not only are fully dependent on, but that also consume high amounts of energy. It is therefore not a surprise that the interest for the Nordics, and specifically Norway, as a location for power intensive industries has increased, considering the access to renewable, green power at a relatively low cost, compared to other countries in Europe.

Understanding the cost effect that increasing power prices have on the operational expenditures for a data center is critical. While having access to an uninterruptible power supply is at the core of a data center existence, having some sort of predictability on the fluctuating power prices, as well as energy security, can make a significant difference for the cost of their operations.

Although there are still many uncertainties on the future power situation, one thing is for sure, and that is that Norway offers some of Europe’s lowest power prices at the moment. Also, considering the countries robust power grid, back-up generators would potentially not even be needed in a data center, optimizing both capital and operational expenditures for data centres, and contributing to even more sustainable operations.

“In Norway you don’t even need backup generators. As a nation, we are so totally dependent on electricity – our lives literally depend up on it – we cannot under any circumstances live without electricity. As a result, our power grid is extremely robust, because we simply can’t take the risk. If you are connected to a strong substation with three or four grid connections, all of which have 99.999 percent uptime, you’re never going to go down,” says Statkraft’s Atle Haga.

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