Norway, Sweden Launch Joint Scheme for Green Energy

Norway and Sweden's joint scheme to boost renewable energy generation, set up in 2012, is on track to deliver 28.4 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2020, Norway's energy regulator said on Thursday.

 

The scheme, the only one of its kind in the world, pays energy producers a premium for each megawatt-hour (MWh) of renewable power they can sell on the market.

 

Consumers are required to buy "green" certificates corresponding to a certain share of their total power use and the authorities able to adjust that share or quota every two years.

 

"Figures from first-quarter 2016 shows that there was 15.5 TWh of new power generation built in Norway and Sweden under the electricity certificate scheme since it was established in 2012," the regulator said in a statement.

 

"This means that the scheme is well on track to reach the target of 28.4 TWh by 2021." This target is roughly equivalent to renewable power generation in neighbouring Denmark.

 

The regulator said it had proposed a downward adjustment in the renewable quota because power consumption in Norway was higher than expected. The Swedish regulator will recommend an increase in the quota for Swedish consumers until 2020.

 

In Sweden and Norway, there is now 6 TWh of renewable power under construction under the joint scheme, of which 2.3 TWh is in Norway, NVE said.

 

In addition, Norwegian energy group Statkraft and its partners decided in February to build a complex of wind farms able to produce up to 3.4 TWh of electricity.


(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis. Editing by Jane Merriman)