For decades Norway has had plentiful and affordable electricity, and we have deliberately used this valuable resource to create jobs, build industry and shape the welfare society as we know it.
A national energy policy has been an important tool for promoting value creation and settlement throughout the country.
Now this strategy is about to change radically. Local municipalities are increasingly allowed to make decisions that affect the energy balance of entire regions – and in many cases the whole country. The paradox is that many of these municipalities produce little power themselves, while their decisions have consequences for industry, tourism and local businesses across our long country.
The examples are piling up
In Hamar, Green Mountain operates a data centre for TikTok. Over time it is expected to consume 1% of all Norwegian electricity production. This is a textbook example of failed national energy policy: a foreign company (Green Mountain) rents out Norwegian power to another foreign company (TikTok). The fact that Green Mountain is an Israeli company gives many people further cause for concern.
In Skien, Google is building a data centre that will eventually require 5% of Norway’s total electricity consumption. The company has already been allocated 2,000 decares of land – equivalent to 250 football pitches. A walk around the centre would be 6 km and take an hour and a half. The trade unions at Hydro and Yara are now expressing serious concern that important industrial projects will not get enough power. Yet Google is not satisfied: the company has applied for two new data centres in Dalane in Rogaland and Våler in Østfold. Together, Google could then lay claim to around 10% of all Norwegian electricity.
Since 2018 Microsoft has had four data centres in Norway, and it also wants to establish new ones. In 2025 Microsoft Datacenter Norway AS had 51 employees and a turnover of NOK 3.5 billion. It is owned by Microsoft Ireland, and the centres are all defined as internal operations with Microsoft Ireland as the company’s only customer. Of the NOK 3.5 billion, the company paid NOK 85 million in tax to Norway. About 2.4%
In Vennesla in Agder, Bulk Infrastructure is building a data centre that originally applied for 400 MW, but was quickly scaled up to 1,000 MW and – according to Statnett’s licence application for the new Stemmen transformer station (June 2024) – will need 2,000 MW by 2040. That is well over 10 per cent of Norway’s total electricity production and practically all power production in Agder. In other words, a small municipality can make decisions that tie up as much electricity as the entire county produces.
The customers Bulk wants to attract include Amazon, Meta and Google. Once again we see the same pattern: foreign technology giants gain control of Norwegian natural resources, while local communities are left with damage to nature, higher electricity prices and modest tax revenues.
In Northern Norway things are moving just as fast
Outside Narvik, Nscale and Aker are planning a large AI data centre that will eventually require 500 MW of computing power. In the first phase they are allocated 230 MW, equivalent to 65% of what Equinor was allocated for the electrification of Melkøya. At the same time, the armed forces were refused increased power consumption at the submarine base in Ramsund in Troms. But Aker BP does not stop there: in total, its data centre plans in Northern Norway would require as much power as the City of Oslo uses today.
The graph below shows who is applying for power
In a normal year Norway consumes around 138 TWh of electricity. The combined applications from data centres now amount to 23,500 MW (144 TWh). This includes reservations (21 TWh), the capacity queue (34 TWh) and «other active cases»/«not yet queued» requests of 87 TWh.
The figures below apply only to reservations and the capacity queue:
14.9 TWh in 2026
29.3 TWh in 2027
40.5 TWh in 2028
44.4 TWh in 2029
This is an explosive increase. The question is simple: Where is this electricity going to come from? Are we going to import power to subsidise the greenwashing of American technology companies?
Because who owns these data centres? According to an excellent summary by Thomas Heggelund from February this year, most data centres have foreign owners.
Should we prioritise «caretaker jobs» in data centres over industrial jobs at Hydro, Yara, Norcem, Elkem, Kongsberg Gruppen or Nammo? And what about agriculture, aquaculture and tourism – where will they get their power from? Or the local businesses that are now being pushed out
There are no «green» data centres as long as they consume enormous amounts of electricity, water, minerals and land. In Hamar, Green Mountain has already contributed to a 5 per cent increase in Hamar municipality's CO₂ emissions. That is neither green nor sustainable.
The choice
We now face a historic choice. Should Norway continue to give away our most valuable strategic resource to foreign companies with minimal value creation for Norway, or should we take back control of our own energy policy and secure power for industry, agriculture, aquaculture and tourism that provide employment and national development throughout the country?
If we do not wake up, data centres will, according to Thema Consulting, consume up to 6% of all Norwegian power by 2030 compared with today's consumption. According to ICIS (Independent Commodity Intelligence Services), the figure will rise to 12% by 2035. Norway would then stand alone at the top in Europe for data centre power consumption per inhabitant, using far more power on data centres than needed to cover its own needs. According to scenarios produced by Statnett, NVE and others, this could lead to higher power prices and the displacement of other industries.
We can no longer let local municipalities make choices that have consequences for counties and entire regions.
We need a national strategy for data centres, and sensible use of resources that secures value for the whole country.
And it is urgent.
Kaare Finbak, MSc Engineering
Ørjan Stenseng, Speaker, author
Book a talk on how we can protect the planet by limiting the number of data centres in Norway and around the world
Further reading and sources
Data centres with foreign owners
Thomas Heggelund: summary of who owns the data centres in Norway (February)Power consumption towards 2030
Thema Consulting: data centres could use up to 6% of Norwegian power in 2030Power consumption towards 2035
ICIS: consumption could rise to 12% of Norwegian power in 2035Aker BP and Nscale with big plans in Northern Norway
E24: Aker in advanced dialogue with the authorities on data centres in Northern Norway