Essay by Eric Worrall
A 230MW AI campus to be powered by Norwegian Hydro has been announced – but competition for electricity and rising prices are already causing political unrest.
July 31, 2025 Global Affairs
Introducing Stargate Norway
We’re launching Stargate Norway—OpenAI’s first AI data center initiative in Europe under our OpenAI for Countries program. Stargate is OpenAI’s overarching infrastructure platform and is a critical part of our long-term vision to deliver the benefits of AI to everyone.
AI is a foundational technology that can boost productivity, drive economic growth, and power new industries. Large-scale compute capacity in Europe will help ensure that this transformation benefits people and communities including developers, researchers, scientists, and startups across Norway and Europe.
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Stargate Norway is planned to deliver 230MW of capacity, with ambitions to expand by an additional 290MW. The facility will target to deliver 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs by the end of 2026, with the intention to expand significantly in the years ahead. OpenAI welcomes the opportunity to be an initial offtaker with the option to scale over time under the OpenAI for Countries program.
This is one of the most ambitious AI infrastructure investments in Europe to date. Narvik’s abundant hydropower, low-cost energy, cool climate, and mature industrial base make it an ideal location to deliver large-scale, sustainable AI capacity.
The facility will run entirely on renewable power and is expected to incorporate closed-loop, direct-to-chip liquid cooling to ensure maximum cooling efficiency. Additionally, excess heat from the GPU systems will be made available to support low-carbon enterprises in the region.
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Read more: https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-norway/
Sounds like a great idea in principle – if you have abundant hydro energy, and it ticks all the green boxes, why not use it?
The problem is there is not enough Norwegian hydroelectricity.
From February this year;
Blackout Britain threat rises on collapse of Norwegian government
Hannah Boland
Sat, February 1, 2025 at 12:07 AM GMT+10Britain risks being left more vulnerable to blackouts as a political row in Norway over power exports escalates.
The Norwegian government collapsed this week following a row over EU green energy laws. A junior coalition partner in the government quit in protest at plans to implement the policies, amid a broader rise in energy nationalism in the country.
Experts said the collapse raised questions over Britain’s reliance on Norwegian energy imports to keep the lights on. Last weekend, Norway accounted for 4pc of the UK’s power, coming via cables that run under the North Sea.
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Britain is expected to become increasingly reliant on electricity imports under Ed Miliband’s net zero push as Labour seeks to decarbonise the grid by switching to intermittent renewables, with wind power forming a crucial pillar of its plans.
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Electricity exports have become a flashpoint in Norway, where the public has been facing soaring energy prices in recent years. Critics have claimed the undersea interconnector cables force prices higher.
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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/blackout-britain-threat-rises-collapse-140740392.html
If Norwegians feel this strongly about sending a few gigawatts of electricity to Britain, how will they feel about foreign owned AI systems slurping all their hydroelectricity?
If the Norwegian hydropower runs short, as it did in 2022 when a severe drought threatened water supplies, who will be the first to have their power cut? Will Norwegian industry be sacrificed to keep the OpenAI campus running?
Hydropower is a great starter energy system. As Willis once pointed out hydro truly is the cheapest form of power, and can help kickstart industrial development in poor countries. But once all the easy hydro sites have been exploited, it is difficult to expand hydro capacity. And when competition for electricity heats up, as it already has in Norway, someone is going to walk away disappointed.
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First thing I thought of when reading the seen, that OpenAI was buying Norwegian hydro power, was who is the unseen whose electricity is being sold to OpenAI? It’s not like Norway was just throwing it all away before.
Narvik in Norway’s far North are the lucky winners. The furthest North I’ve seen is Bodø, about 5 hours south of Narvik. Interesting place, but very cold even in April when I visited. The sun looked strange to my eyes, never rose far above the horizon. The locals were friendly in a reserved kind of way. There was this beautiful fluffy white cat which came up to say hello every morning. But Bodø apparently has a big art community, and when I was there an impressively large shop selling exotic sex toys. I guess you have to do something to avoid boredom in their long winters.
Norway is the battery of Europe! Norway’s abundant hydroelectric energy will supply Europe in the dark times of Dunkelflaute, or will Norway disconnect?
Norway’s trouble is that Europe views Norway’s hydro as its backup. Germany’s reliance on intermittent renewables already has caused major prices spikes in a now less friendly Norway.
Does Norway really have hydro energy to spare?
75% of Norway’s hydro potential is already in operation. At 100% operation, less than 155 TWh electrical energy production is possible. Norway consumes 125 TWh. That is growing due to PEVs among other reasons, but currently, there is roughly 30 TWh excess, in a good year. Electricity production varies, erratically, by 60 TWh from year to year due to weather. In a dry year, Norway needs an additional 25-30 TWh of electrical energy, but from where? Germany, already, requires at least 45 TWh of backup for its intermittent renewables; the EU six times that or 270 TWh which is nearly twice the 100% development storage capacity of Norway. Does anyone seriously think Norway will release its entire hydro capability to the EU, and still fall short of EU demand by 120 TWh?
It could be worse, and sure enough, it is worse.
PEVs in Norway are now over 30% by number and growing. Oddly, petroleum consumption has not fallen – how can that be? One reason is that people have both an ICE and a PEV and rich Norway now uses more electricity than its 50% larger neighbor Sweden.
The attached graph shows the diurnal consumption of electricity in Norway, centered on zero to reduce the shock value. Daytime consumption has risen as people plug in the vehicle at work, but less than at night, where is a larger increase, due to charging the PEVs. Charging at work is expensive, even for rich Norwegians.
There was an estimate that Norway at 65% PEV penetration would use only 6% more electricity. The estimate is a joke, since ~ 9% increase has occurred at half the PEV penetration. And, Norway still needs to heat its homes and cool its beer.
You can see the problem for the EU and Norway. The EU can beg, but Norway will still disconnect.
Question: does this lead to invasion and occupation of Norway for its electricity?
There is hope for Norway. It lies in the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean. There is black gold there, 75% of Norway’s foreign exchange, and growing.
I saw Okkupert on Netflix – lets hope it does not come to that 🙂
I hope you consider writing this as an article for WUWT, there is a lot more happening here than I realised – I didn’t know about high EV penetration in Norway. I’m sure readers will want to know how the big European battery is about to unplug.
Kathryn Porter also had a piece about Norway’s electricity interconnections earlier this year at her Watt Logic site entitled “Norway turning away from electricity interconnection”
She pointed out that only 1.4GW of the 33GW system is pumped storage so when the water runs out there is very little left to serve domestic customers. AI uses lots and lots of water and is only going to make the situation worse.
She said sharp increases in Norway’s winter electricity prices in recent years had created a political backlash against interconnection in the country.
https://watt-logic.com/2025/02/21/norway-turning-away-from-electricity-interconnection/
Electricity price northern Norway:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/GE1J2AZS94#9naorT5y2ldC
Peak demand EU: 520 GW
Export capacity Norway: 9 GW, lets say 5.2 on a cold winter day
1% is very close to zero.
It certainly is zero adjacent! 😉
Sounds like time for Norwegians to tell their neighbors to supply their own electricity.
Norway should set a minimum fixed price per MWH for exports and set it high enough to subsidize domestic consumption.
Eric,
“The problem is there is not enough Norwegian hydroelectricity.”
Here is the price graph of lgl above for Northern Norway, where this AI system will go:
The price is very low and falling. The North has huge hydro resources, a small population, and a very limited capacity to transmit out of the region, even to the main population of Norway.
Data is much easier to transmit than power, so it makes sense for everyone to place the AI centers in such situations. It does not divert power from the main Norway market.
Norway produces more than twice as much power per capita as the USA. They are not running short.
Remember Hydro is not a renewable it has the same status as nuclear energy so not something you are supposed to be celebrating Nick as a climate cultist.
Tell that to the Norwegians, Nick – but don’t go there to do it. I have family in Norway and I have never seen them so angry when I bring up electricity prices. When the winter rainfall is poor prices spike to extremes that makes even the UK wince. It doesn’t matter that this might just be for a few weeks – people had bills 500% higher for that period – and they remember that when it comes to election time.
At various times, California did not consider large scale hydro “renewable”. I think they have reversed themselves, but green theology is itself variable.
I think the idea was that rural folks with a stream could install water-wheels and use the flowing water to contribute to the “save the planet” practices. This is similar to the idea of solar panels on your roof or in the backyard. This made “little-hydro” green or renewable.
Had they classified large scale hydro as renewable, the goals for “renewable” would have been met and there would be nothing more to be accomplished. I think other states followed this CA idea.
I think they have reversed themselves
From what I’ve seen, the definition depends on exactly what they’re trying to push.
Europe Countries generally are factoring in the Euro-Interconnector system as the “answer” to the intermittency problem (at least until they get those magic batteries and other cunn8ng schemes up and running), as if it were a dispatchable, guaranteed, ever-ready source of electricity. In short each is relying on the other to provide power on demand as required.
One of the many problems with this is large areas of Europe are becalmed simultaneously, and cloud covered extensively during Winter. Demand on the Euro-Interconnector will be wide spread and heavy.
The only two reliable, large producers of dispatchable spinning generation are France and Norway. France has its own problems having to replace it ageing reactor fleet, and Norwegian consumers are seeing higher electricity bills because of increased demand from other Countries which is causing political problems.
Net Grifto really is a house of cards ready to tumble.
So riddle me this, Batman –
if AI systems are the all-knowing, “just the facts, m’am” fonts of all knowledge, why would the world need more than one?
(a bit like climate models – if the basic inputs data are what everyone must use, why do we need more than one?)
Same reason big companies need more than one employee.
But everyone / anyone can use an AI.
Only the employer can use the employee.