Moe for electricity from shore

When Ola Borten Moe addressed the annual meeting of his party association in Haugesund, the Minister for Petroleum and Energy used the occasion to announce that he has written to Statoil and asked the company to consider supplying all the fields at the Utsira plateau, including the giant Johan Sverdrup with land based electricity.

He points out that this has several implications, the major ones being sufficient onshore supply of hydroelectric power, and a grid with sufficient transfer capacity. These statements go a long way in confirming the claims of opponents to the “Monster pylons” that have been discussed over the last years. These claims where that it was the desire to supply the installations in the North Sea with land based power that was the real driving force behind the proposed expansion of the national power grid.