Expected consumption growth in the Nordpool areas, 2030 and beyond

As the world undergoes the green transition, it is expected that demand for electricity will increase as we look to replace fossil fuels as a source of power.

Historically, studies looking to forecast this growth have been made by only looking at changes to the demand side of the equation.

However, in a world looking to achieve net-zero emissions, making such projections now needs to account for the fact that not only is the demand side developing new requirements, but the changing nature of electricity supply also needs to be factored in.

This is already evident in sectors such as those producing hydrogen for industrial purposes, or batteries for cars and other vehicles.

Heating systems for households and the service sector will need to change from fossil-based fuels to electricity-based systems like heat-pumps too.

In Norway, reducing CO2 emissions to fulfil the EU’s “Fit for 55” requirements also means that the electricity supply of all offshore installations will need to be switched from gas-fired plants to an onshore electricity supply.

All main consumption sectors in each country have been estimated individually, but this blog outlines the overall Nordic forecast for each sector, in addition to the total consumption growth for each country.

Our forecasts here are intended to be a “best guess” of how consumption will develop over time, based on a huge number of external sources.

The “Fit for 55” emission target from the EU is not a separate electricity system target – and so our consumption forecast is not be directly connected to this total emission target.

However, we do assume that most of the electricity consumption growth in the Nordpool area has to be covered by new renewable or no-emission production.

Nordic consumption until 2040

Table 1 shows the overall Nordic consumption estimates by sector from EQ.

These numbers show us that Nordic electricity consumption is on track to grow from about 400 TWh today, to 500 TWh by 2030, and further to 571 TWh by 2040.

This development is of course uncertain, and may seem like a significant rise, but several sources indicates that even growth if Nordic electricity consumption does rise by 100 TWh by 2030 , this will still be too low to meet the “Fit for 55” carbon emissions target.

Total consumption for each country

In the table below you see the total consumption for each country.

For Nordpool, the consumption growth forecast indicates a 25% average increase from today. Denmark is expected to undergo the biggest transition, estimated to increase power consumption by about 60%, largely due to the transition to heat pumps from fossil fuel-based heating systems in households and the service sectors.

Future additions

This blog shows the first draft of EQ’s long-term consumption forecast for the Nordpool area, which will be updated as new information arrives. EQ will also establish hourly profiles for the individual price-zones until 2030 soon, so look out for an announcement detailing when this is available for customers.

The next step will then be to establish a corresponding long-term production estimate out to 2040 and put this into the European “Fit for 55” context.

Sources:

Statnett, NVE, DNV (Norway and all Nordpool countries)

Energimyndigheten, SVK (Sweden)

Energistyrelsen, Energinet DK (Denmark)

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