Rain means power!

The rain is back and falling soakingly as I write. Yesterday we had so much heavy cloud we couldn’t see the mountains across Lundegaardsvatten for most of the day! However, we cannot complain. The west coast has had what might be termed as drought conditions for the past 6 weeks! The weather has been dry and sunny, with hardly a cloud in sight (apart from a couple of days of snow). It has been cold for the time of year with temperatures rarely getting above 5 degrees, but I for one was certainly not complaining!

However, when you are used to lots of rain, you soon notice when there is next to nothing! The people who have noticed it most I would say are the electric companies. Norway gets all of its electricity from water power. Throughout the mountains you will see some discreet and some not so discreet plants, channelling the water energy into hydroelectric power. Many plants sit at the bottom of massive waterfalls, or on fast flowing streams and ravines. All, of course, are dependent on being fed by inches and inches of rain.

There was talk a while back of raising electricity prices, and even buying back some of our electricity from Sweden, but as far as I know it hasn’t happened yet. That is the problem when you are dependent upon ‘green’ products. Sometimes Mother Nature does not comply with requirements!

There is a focus here on building small local plants to feed into the national grid, and you do see quite a few. However, according to the International Energy Agency, Norway, along with other countries who have hydro potential, are not doing as well at harnessing it as they could. The main reason appears to be cost. Despite the tax breaks – yes on the tax form it asks whether you own a power station or power lines. Apparently you can get a 5% deduction on the book rated value each year. It is probably a fair sum considering the price of building a power station – and maintaining it. However, you still have to pay wealth tax on the power station and lines, as well as income tax on whatever you manage to sell to the grid, so I can imagine that at the end of the day owning a power station is not exactly a licence to print money!

Formueskat: In Norway, the Government levies a wealth tax on a taxpayers personal property, i.e. house, cabin and boat (minus mortgage/loan), bank deposits, shares and savings at 1.1% over NOK750,000 (double for a couple). Only Norway, France, Iceland. Lichtenstein and Switzerland have wealth taxes of this kind. Not even the (ex) communist countries seem willing to stoop as low as to tax the value of something you have bought (with the help of the bank) and are paying for with money on which you have already paid tax! It is a double taxation, and although it is only 1.1% it must irritate a lot of people. It must also become difficult for retired people to keep the standard of living they enjoyed whilst earning if their pension is not enough to pay the wealth tax on top of all their other bills.