Bloomberg (Feb 3): Nordic countries increasingly feel they are paying the cost of a failed German energy policy — one they weren’t consulted on, though it affects them.

Energiewende is the German version of the energy transition championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel: shutting down nuclear power stations and embracing wind and solar electricity. All were supported by successive right- and left-wing governments with generous subsidies. Dunkelflaute is a period of windless and cloudy weather that reduces renewable production.

The combination of both words means the German electricity grid is today more weather dependent than ever. Without sufficient baseload generation running 24/7 and dispatchable plants, which can be activated on demand, Berlin relies on imports from neighboring countries to fill the gap during long stretches of winter when it’s dark and windless.

In Norway, energiewende and dunkelflaute have collided, pushing up local electricity prices as the country exports a growing amount of power via cross-border cables. Average wholesale power prices in 2023-2024 were more than 50% higher in southern Norway than in the 2010-2020 period. The problem reached its zenith last week when Oslo debated whether to adopt new EU rules, known as the fourth clean-energy package, key to advancing the rollout of renewables.

On Thursday, the euro-skeptic Center Party denied its support to the measures and abandoned the coalition government that’s ruled the country for three-and-a-half years, setting off the leadership spiral. The center-left Labour Party will now go it alone, in the party’s first minority government in 25 years, ahead of elections set for Sept. 8. […]

The collapse of the Norwegian government came months after a spat between Sweden and Germany after Stockholm rejected Berlin’s request to build another cross-border connection. In 2023, Norway rejected a British request for a submarine cable to Scotland. Crucially, whoever wins the next Norwegian election, they are likely to scrap a 50-year-old pair of cables connecting Norway with Denmark. If that happens, it would indicate that other cross-border interconnectors may be in danger when they reach their end of life, and that new projects to replace them — and also expand capacity beyond the current design — may never be built.