Norway to help ease pain of rocketing power prices on businesses

OSLO, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Norway’s government on Friday presented a long-awaited package of loans and subsidies to help curb the impact of sky-high power prices for businesses, the latest move by a European country to help ease the energy crunch.

Governments across the region have been racing to present measures to protect consumers and industry from more expensive energy bills.

The subsidy scheme will cover companies whose power costs exceeded 3% of revenues in the first half of 2022, costing in total 3 billion Norwegian crowns ($292.50 million), Industry Minister Jan Christian Vestre told a news conference.

“On the one hand, we must avoid creating further pressure on the Norwegian economy, while at the same time we want to give electricity-intensive companies help to adapt,” Vestre said.

The subsidy presented by the centre-left government will compensate 25% of power rates above a 0.70 Norwegian crown per kilowatt hour threshold and would be capped at 3.5 million crowns per company.

In addition, companies can borrow up to 50 million crowns, he said.

($1 = 10.2565 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Nora Buli and Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)