OSLO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Norway lacks more rain than the previous 100 years and doubled power prices could continue throughout the year, unless there is huge amount of rain, public broadcaster NRK reported Friday.
The country's power industry now sends warning about "empty magazines" and high power prices, the report said.
"Everything is turned upside down. Now people pay winter power prices," said Stein Erik Iversen, sales manager at power company BKK.
In order to stabilize Norway's water reservoir at a "normal" level, the country will need huge amounts of rain this autumn, experts said.
"If it rains 50 percent more than usual the rest of the year, the level will be normal at the turn of the year," said Gudmund Bartnes, senior advisor in Norway's Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE).
This, however, is very unlikely, according to climate researcher Helga Therese Tilley Tajet from the Meteorological Institute. She has namely gone through the statistics of precipitation in Norway back to 1900, and studied rainfall in autumns.
"This has happened only two times earlier in western Norway, in 1983 and 1978. It has never happened in the whole Norway. The highest measured rainfall during autumn in the whole Norway was 40 percent more precipitation than what is in average normal in autumn," Tajet told NRK.
Norway is linked to the rest of Europe in a common power market and the continental Europe also experiences higher power prices than usual. Prices for both gas and carbon, as well as CO2 quotas, have increased.
When the prices outside Norway increase, the same happens in Norway, Bartnes said.
