OSLO: The oil and gas exports that made Norway rich are also key contributors to climate change. Norway may have an answer for that. The country’s mountains, lakes and rivers could eventually be turned into something like a giant battery storing power generated by wind farms and solar cells elsewhere in Europe, then sending electricity back when renewable output slumps.
The idea is to use excess power generated by renewables to pump water upstream behind dams. When the electricity is needed, the water would be released, rushing past turbines as the energy is turned back into useful electricity.
The concept appears particularly attractive for the EU, which will redesign its electricity market over the next years to reflect the growing share of renewables in the system. The European Commission is expected to make its proposals on the topic by the end of this year.
The country would be able to deliver a lot of power “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, in times where Europe needs huge volumes fast,” Norway’s energy minister Tord Lien said.
The “green battery” idea excites Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice president in charge of the energy union.
“Norway, despite its vast hydrocarbon reserves, develops its renewables and energy storage capacities in an impressive way,” Šefčovič said.
Norway is already one of the world’s top hydro power producers, able to cover almost all its own electricity needs with what’s generated from the country’s abundant lakes and glaciers. That, in turn, allows Norway to export almost all of its oil and gas.
Šefčovič, who traveled to the country earlier this year, was particularly taken by the 1.2 gigawatt Kvilldal power plant. Impressed, he declared that the dam “has a bigger storage capacity than would the Chinese wall plastered on both sides [with] the most sophisticated batteries of today.”
