Published 2026-09-12 · Event 2026-04-22

Statnett pauses new industrial reservations north of Svartisen; 1,150 MW reserved is not a data-centre total

On 22 April 2026 Statnett said it was temporarily stopping reservations for future large industrial consumption north of Svartisen, to protect ordinary consumption and security of supply. Existing reservations remain. About 1,150 MW is reserved for new consumption and about 1,100 MW stands in the queue. Those are industrial-consumption figures for a named Norwegian region. They are not a Stargate megawatt and not a Swedish hall.

Statnett’s 22 April 2026 notice is the dated Norwegian transmission source used here. It introduces a temporary stop on reservations for future large industrial consumption north of Svartisen. The purpose, in the authority’s wording, is to secure electricity supply and allow growth in ordinary consumption. Customers who already have a reservation keep it. No new reservations will be opened for queued customers, including connection on special terms. Freed capacity will not be given to other queued projects in the present situation.

The regional numbers are consumption planning, not a data-centre ledger. Statnett says today’s consumption from Salten and north is about 1,500 MW, that about 1,150 MW of new consumption is reserved, and that about 1,100 MW stands in the queue. Since 2023 the ordinary-consumption threshold has been 5 MW; reported growth in that band is 120 MW. Expected consumption growth in the area in the coming years is about 330 MW, and combined consumption in the region is described as rising by about 60 percent over a ten-year period. None of those sentences names a data centre.

East Finnmark is a second, tighter rule. The notice lowers the ordinary-consumption limit there from 5 MW to 1 MW because the grid is fully utilised. Lofoten, Vesterålen and the Harstad region already have a 1 MW limit, with a stated aim to raise it to 5 MW by 2028 at the latest. Those thresholds are not IT-load figures and not a Swedish bidding-area map.

A later AI-campus announcement in Kvandal, outside Narvik, sits in the same broad northern geography and is stored on its own July 2025 row. The April notice does not name that project, does not cancel a named reservation, and does not publish a data-centre megawatt. Treating 1,150 MW as Stargate power, or as spare Swedish SE1 capacity, invents an identity the authority left blank. The notice does say a bottleneck arises on the grid from Helgeland and from Sweden when consumption grows without new local winter power.

DataCenterSweden records 22 April 2026 as a Norwegian reservation hold for large industrial consumption north of Svartisen. No Swedish project identifier is attached. The next update would need a later Statnett paper that names a data-centre applicant, lifts the hold, or restates the reserved and queued totals. Until then, reserved and queued stay industrial and regional.

Why it matters

A northern Norwegian hold can be misread as a cancelled AI campus or as spare Swedish winter power. The April notice is usable only if 1,150 MW and 1,100 MW stay unlabelled as data centres — and if no Swedish SE1 cell inherits them.

What remains unknown

The notice does not name data-centre applicants inside the reserved or queued totals, does not mention Stargate Norway, and does not publish a Swedish connection effect.

Sources