Norway Pauses Grid Reservations for New Data Centres and Plans a Licensing Regime

Together, the two steps put one of Europe's main data centre destinations, long attractive for its hydropower, among the countries now slowing the AI-driven build-out. Statnett said 800 MW of data centres are connected to its grid today, 4,200 MW hold reserved capacity, 9,100 MW sit in its capacity queue and requests for a further 18,000 MW have been received. Norway's peak electricity consumption is just over 25,000 MW, according to the company.

Energy Minister Terje Aasland said Statnett had received connection applications for 26,000 megawatts of new capacity so far this year, more than the country's current capacity, and that data centres accounted for 75% of the requests. Norway is a net exporter of power, but projections show new data centre demand could cause an energy deficit and higher electricity prices in the coming years.

Who Gets Power Under the Licences

The licensing scheme will favour data centres serving defence, police and emergency preparedness, health services and critical infrastructure such as the mobile network and the financial system, the government said. Access to land and electricity will be restricted for global cloud companies and cryptocurrency firms. New data centres should pay for the grid costs they create and may be asked to build gas-fired power plants, including carbon capture and storage, to supply their own electricity.

Torgeir Micaelsen, the minister of digitalisation and public governance, said the aim was to "gain more control over the growth of data centres" and to "ensure that we get the data centres we actually need." Critics of the industry in Norway argue that it creates few jobs and pushes up power prices.

What Statnett Has Stopped

In a press release, Statnett said it has suspended three things: new connection capacity reservations, new applications for approval of plant functionality under section 14 of Norway's system responsibility regulation, and pending applications from facilities seeking to connect directly to the 420 kV transmission grid. Existing connections are unaffected, plants whose functional requirements have already been approved can still connect, and applications already under review for plants due to start operating soon on the regional grid will continue. The operator said it may also consider some applications from smaller plants planning to connect before 1 August 2027.

Statnett's stated reasons are about grid stability rather than supply. Data centres can produce large, rapid changes in power demand, may be controlled by software and can be more vulnerable to grid disturbances than traditional heavy industry, the company said. Peer Olav Østli, its group director for system operations and market, described the halt as a measure to reduce risk to the power system and stressed that it is not a general stop on connecting data centres.

The pause will stay in place until Statnett has drawn up functional requirements for data centre plants, the energy regulator RME has approved them and mechanisms to enforce compliance are working. Examples the company gave include rules on when facilities may disconnect during disturbances, how quickly their consumption may ramp up or down, and technical measures to reduce the risk of oscillations on the grid.

The requirements will go out for public consultation before RME rules on them. Statnett said it would try to align them with rules being developed by other European grid operators and the European network body ENTSO-E, and that over the longer term it will study whether data centres could help balance the power system.