Norway is divided into 5 power zones/regions (south, east, west, mid, north). The northern zone is not completely detached from the rest, but the the transfer

Norway is divided into 5 power zones/regions (south, east, west, mid, north). The northern zone is not completely detached from the rest, but the the transfer capacity is very poor, and thus lots of power that goes to the northern zones actually gets imported from Sweden. The northern zone has sort of been shielded from the export cable, and still pay rates which are close to the "old days". Now, when the gov. planned for these cables, a big selling point was that IF Norway was to need extra energy, these cables would make it easier to import from other countries. Wat has happened, though, is that the energy crisis in Europe has made it very profitable to sell our energy to them, and make Norwegian households/customers compete against the foreign buyers. So say in the west region, where people were used to pay on average 0.12 NOK / kWh one year, suddenly they faced bills with 2.6 NOK /kWh - or a 20x increase. Of course the gov. did implement programs to subsidize the bills ("strømstøtte"), but they were still high enough for people to feel it in their pocketbooks. Another factor which MAY have played a role in the increased demand, is that we've had lots of green projects which have been quite energy expensive, like making our oil rigs electric (rather than using gas to produce electricity). I'm honestly not too much in the loop on that though, but it is a popular populist argument you see all the time, often in combination with the export cables. But in either case, it has become such a hot potato, and the populist party/parties have embraced the anti-export cables stance.