Norway’s mainland has 5.2 MW of batteries that anyone names, in five sites, and NVE says the hydro plants are why

NVE says Norway has no stand-alone commercial battery of significant size, and puts it down to the hydro plants

In its fact sheet on batteries in the power market, NVE writes that today there are no Norwegian stand-alone commercial battery plants of significant size (“I dag er det ingen norske frittstående kommersielle batterianlegg av betydelig størrelse”), and that batteries have so far taken less part in the power market than in the countries around Norway, largely because of the regulated hydro power, which gives the power market short-term flexibility and smaller swings in the power price. In its fact sheet on batteries in the grid it names the largest battery in Norway: 8.8 MW and 9.2 MWh at Longyearbyen, Svalbard, installed in 2023 beside diesel generators when the coal plant closed. Svalbard is not connected to the mainland and sits in no bidding zone, so that battery cannot sell into Statnett’s markets. NVE adds that during the autumn of 2025 plans were announced for several larger battery plants in Norway, the largest of 400 MW; it does not name that plant, and no concession case, release or company filing read for this page does either.

Sources: NVE, fact sheet 03/2026, page 2; NVE, fact sheet 04/2026, page 4. NVE’s words are quoted in Norwegian with the translation beside them.

NVE’s reason shows in the price: southern Norway’s day-ahead price swung least of the 19 zones the site reads, €70 a megawatt hour between a day’s dearest and cheapest two hours, against €143 in Germany

A battery that trades energy is paid the gap between the hours it buys and the hours it sells. Over the year to 25 October 2026, the average gap between the eight dearest and the eight cheapest quarter hours of the day-ahead auction in NO2, the south west, was €70 a megawatt hour, the smallest of the 19 zones on the site’s Europe page, on an average price of €103. This is the smaller swing NVE describes: hydro plants that can hold water back and run when power is dear keep the gap narrow, so a battery has less to earn from trading in southern Norway than in any other zone on that page, which leaves the reserve markets.

The same figure for every zone on the Europe page, from px/eu_spreads.json, 19 zones with at least 300 days in the year to 25 October 2026. Southern Norway’s price is the one Norwegian day-ahead price the site may show: CC BY 4.0, Bundesnetzagentur | SMARD.de. Great Britain’s figure is read from Elexon’s market index, hourly, so its gap is the two dearest hours less the two cheapest. The other four Norwegian zones’ prices are Nord Pool’s, which has not allowed them to be shown.

At the start of 2025 batteries were prequalified for 8.1 MW of Norway’s FFR, 1 MW of its FCR-D up and 0.4 MW of its FCR-N; in Sweden, for 608 MW of FCR-D up

A battery must pass Statnett’s tests before it can sell a reserve. The four Nordic system operators published the batteries prequalified in each country on 1 January 2025: in Norway 8.1 MW for FFR, the fastest reserve, 1 MW for FCR-D up, 0.4 MW for FCR-N and none for aFRR or mFRR. One battery can be prequalified for several products, so the figures overlap and do not add to a fleet. Against them stands what Norway must hold: Statnett’s balancing report puts Norway’s share of the Nordic need in 2025 at 234 MW of FCR-N, 565 MW of FCR-D up and 117 MW of FFR, almost all of it from hydro plants.

Sources: Nordic system operators, “Batteries in the Nordic reserve markets”, April 2025, pages 6 to 10, MW prequalified on 1 January 2025 (Finland prequalifies no unit for mFRR); Statnett, “Report on balancing 2026”, table 2, Norway’s requirement in 2025. From 27 March 2028 every unit selling FCR in Norway must meet the common Nordic requirements (Statnett), which is why Hafslund wants a battery at Harpefossen.

eSett’s storage figures for Norway are read every day and held

What a megawatt is paid in Norway’s reserve markets is calculated and held until Statnett allows it to be shown

Where the named batteries are

All but one of the named batteries on the mainland sit in the south and the middle of the country. One circle per battery, at the place its name carries or its municipality’s centre, its area by power. Amber operates; blue is being built; mid blue is consented; pale blue is applied for, notified or announced. Svalbard’s battery is off the map.

21 of 23 batteries placed from GeoNames, because no source gives coordinates; the bidding zone of each is read from its county as Statnett’s zone map draws it.

Five batteries of a megawatt or more run on the mainland, the largest 2 MW, and two of them hold up a weak local grid

Named by NVE’s fact sheets or the owner; every figure’s source is on the battery’s page. The Gudvangen battery charges a ferry and gives no power figure.

47.5 MW is consented or being built in 11 batteries, and 55 MW more has been applied for

Every battery that needs a concession goes through NVE, and NVE’s case list is read every day, so the steps below are dated as NVE takes them. The two largest stand-alone parks, Flå (10 MW) and Harestua (4.9 MW), were both consented in the autumn of 2026 and plan to run in 2027; the largest any paper names, Lyse’s 33 MW beside its Lysebotn hydro plant, was applied for in August 2026.

Ten companies have registered to build or own batteries in Norway that no concession case or release yet ties to a named battery

The Brønnøysund register shows companies set up for battery parks before any battery is announced. These are leads, not batteries, and they are not counted anywhere on the site: the company, when and where it was registered, and what its filing says it is for.

• Drangedal Batteripark AS (938033323), registered 3 July 2026 in Stavanger, registered at Norsk ESS AS’s business address with Norsk ESS’s stated purpose, word for word
• Nordic BESS AS (937489080), registered 11 April 2026 in Oslo
• Akershus Energi Batteri & Lading AS (937363885), registered 16 March 2026 in Lillestrøm, to invest in and develop charging and battery assets
• KG Energy AS (937922515), registered 18 June 2026 in Karmøy, to build and run battery plants and renewable energy; registered under storage of electricity
• Storxion AS (938135231), registered 24 August 2026 in Kristiansand, energy storage and battery storage systems; registered under storage of electricity
• Kraftnor AS (936093418), registered 4 September 2025 in Bærum, sale of energy solutions; registered under storage of electricity
• Ergan Sol- og Batteripark AS (934911326), registered 24 January 2025 in Lindesnes, a solar and battery park company of the kind Solkraft Sør uses
• Skipmannsheia Sol- og Batteripark AS (935376106), registered 15 April 2025 in Kristiansand, a solar and battery park company of the kind Solkraft Sør uses
• Heptehei Sol- og Batteripark AS (936357644), registered 15 October 2025 in Kristiansand, a solar and battery park company of the kind Solkraft Sør uses
• Solkraft Sør Sol- og Batteriparker AS (937033826), registered 10 February 2026 in Kristiansand, with two numbered sister companies registered in January and February 2026

Brønnøysundregistrene, the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities, read 25 October 2026 through data.brreg.no, NLOD 2.0. Searched by name (batteri, BESS, energilager, storage) and by the activity code for storage of electricity, 35.160.

What is not here, and why

A list of Norway’s batteries from any authority, because none exists; the named list is the ones NVE and the owners name, and behind-the-meter batteries under a megawatt and home batteries are left out. What any battery earns, because Statnett publishes the markets and not the bidders. The day-ahead price in NO1, NO3, NO4 and NO5, because it is Nord Pool’s and Nord Pool has not allowed it to be shown; only NO2’s, which the German regulator’s SMARD portal republishes under CC BY 4.0, is on this site. eSett’s imbalance data carries the difference between the imbalance price and the day-ahead price, and this site does not keep that column. FFR prices and FCR-D down, because Statnett’s Driftsdata files carry neither. The 400 MW plan NVE mentions, because NVE does not name it and nothing found does. A live page, because no open source publishes Norway’s system minute by minute with a battery in it: Statnett’s live figures state no reuse terms and have no battery field. Coordinates, because no source gives them, so a point is a GeoNames place.

Sources: NVE concession cases and papers (nve.no, NLOD 2.0), read every day; NVE fact sheets 02, 03 and 04 of 2026; the owners’ and builders’ releases, each on its battery’s page; the Brønnøysund register (NLOD 2.0); GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); Natural Earth. Statnett Driftsdata and eSett open data are read and held. Nothing on this page is modelled.