«It is not economically justifiable that the power in one region lies unused, while another region suffers from the darkest power shortage.» Abraham Berge, 1918 - Norges Handels og Sjøfartstidene

This concern came from Governor Abraham Berge in the aftermath of World War I. In Eastern Norway, the power situation was critical, while in Western Norway, over 70,000 horsepower flowed unused into the fjords every day.

Industrial pioneer and CEO of Tyssefaldene A/S, Ragnvald Blakstad, shared this concern. The power surplus in Western Norway meant a loss of both energy and capital, which he found unacceptable. In 1918, he sat down at his desk. On a photograph of a mountain area above Haukeli, he drew small poles across the landscape.

Blakstad sent the photograph to the government along with a proposal to build power lines from west to east. He firmly believed it was possible to erect a line through the high mountains over Tyssedal in Hardanger, across Haukeli via Vinje and Kongsberg to Christiania, where the need for power was great. He estimated that 150,000 horsepower could be transmitted along this route and believed it could be realized within two years.

His proposal made headlines in the newspapers, and his plan was quickly dubbed “the electric highway.”

In meetings with Waterways Director Ingvar Kristensen and several county governors, a proposal to organize the administration of the country’s electricity supply was adopted. However, the Waterways Director believed that a transmission from Western to Eastern Norway was completely unnecessary and, together with the Electricity Commission, advised rejecting Blakstad’s proposal.

Blakstad was furious at the rejection and immediately sent a response, but he did not succeed. Yet, had Blakstad lived today, he would have seen that his grand vision was indeed possible.

Pioneering phase of power transmission

In the early phase of electrification in the 19th century, there were limited possibilities for transmitting electricity over long distances, and most power plants were internal to businesses.

With the development of the alternating current system with step-up and step-down transformers, patented by Frenchman Lucien Gaulard and his British business partner John D. Gibbs in 1881, entirely new possibilities for long-distance power transmission emerged.

In the autumn of 1891, companies AEG and Oerlikon built a three-phase high-voltage transmission line of 175 km from a hydroelectric plant in Lauffen to the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt am Main.

A unified power nation

Today, Norway has power lines crisscrossing the country, ensuring electricity supply to every corner. But we cannot say the battle against nature’s forces is over. Even today, technology is constantly challenged by demanding conditions in various parts of the country.

Over the past fifteen years, Statnett has averaged one incident per year related to icing, ranging from damaged components to complete tower collapses with significant costs. Some routes have proven so challenging that the solution has been to relocate towers. The battle against nature continues.

Norway’s landscape is ideal for hydropower, with high mountains, good reservoir potential, and abundant rainfall. However, these same conditions made long-distance power transmission a technical challenge.

Norwegian power lines had to withstand strong forces from wind, ice, snow, and salt. The 1920s became a decade where power transmission truly had to prove itself against these elements.

The man tasked with this challenge was Chief Engineer Johan Collett Holst. He was hired by the Waterfalls Directorate in the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) in 1921 and was given the demanding task of building the line from Vemork to Oslo (later known as Rjukan–Oslo).

The project was a daring endeavor, both in terms of the 144 km transmission length and the route through challenging terrain, including a high mountain area over 1,100 meters in elevation.

The line was commissioned in 1922, but in its first winter, one of the towers collapsed under the weight of ice and snow. Several outages occurred due to lines touching and causing short circuits.

Based on experiences from this project, a comprehensive research initiative was launched to study the resilience of lines and towers under various climatic conditions.

The Vemork–Oslo line was also notable for being the country’s first to use aluminum conductors with a steel core. By combining aluminum’s light weight with steel’s strength, the lines could be tensioned more tightly, allowing for lower towers and longer spans.

To this day, steel-aluminum remains the most commonly used conductor material in power lines.

The fjord region

In the early post-war period, Western Norway became the site of several transmission developments marked by unique challenges related to climate and topography, especially in crossing fjords.

The Sognefjord stood out as the ultimate test of engineering prowess, being the deepest, longest, and most branched fjord in the world.

In 1955, Sognekraft A/S, with Betonmast A/S as the main contractor, commissioned the first span across the fjord. The 66 kV line between Njøs and Vange crossed the fjord between Ramnaberg and Fatlaberg, spanning approximately 4,900 meters.

A little over a decade later, an even stronger connection crossed the fjord when NVE–Statkraftverkene commissioned the transmission line from Refsdal to Fardal in 1966. This line crossed the Sognefjord between Ramnaberg and Fimreiteåsen with a span of 4,570 meters.

Statkraftverkene later installed a 4,597-meter span on the Aurland–Fardal line in 1974. These spans over the Sognefjord remained the longest in the world for several years, until engineers from Statnett built a 5,376-meter span over the Ameralik Fjord near Nuuk in Greenland in 1993.

Ice castle in the high mountains

Another landscape element that has challenged power transmission in Norway is the high mountains with their demanding climatic conditions. In the highlands above Voss, it became a battle against ice and cold.

In the autumn of 1956, Voss Elektrisitetsverk was commissioned by the Telegraph Agency and NRK to build a 20 kV line up to the television transmitter at the summit of the mountain Lønahorgi, just north of Voss. Already that same autumn, major problems arose with broken lines and towers in the extremely weather-exposed area. The line was reinforced several times, but again and again it succumbed to winter storms. Further reinforcements were necessary.

By the early 1960s, the line was considered the most heavily reinforced power line in the world!

Today, this line has been dismantled, and a new route has been established on the backside of the mountain. However, the old line to Lønahorgi still holds the Norwegian record for the highest measured ice load, with around 300 kg of ice per meter of line. For comparison, two to three kilograms per meter is considered a lot in most parts of the world.

A unified power nation

Today, Norway has power lines crisscrossing the country, ensuring electricity supply to every corner. But we still cannot say that the battle against nature’s forces has been won once and for all. Even today, technology is constantly challenged by demanding conditions in various parts of the country.

Over the past fifteen years, Statnett has averaged one incident per year related to icing, ranging from damaged components to complete tower collapses with significant costs. Some routes have proven so challenging that the solution has been to relocate towers. The battle against nature continues.