Lysaker, 18 August 2005 Nord Pool has received the following information from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE): Electricity consumption and production increased in all the Nordic countries from week 31 to 32. Especially, the Swedish production increased significantly. Out of an increase of 256 GWh, 139 GWh were used to cover increased Swedish consumption, while 117 GWh went to increased export to Germany and Finland. In Finland, one third of electricity consumption was covered by import from Russia and Sweden. Also Denmark was a net importer of electricity in week 32, and 17 percent of the Danish consumption was covered by import from Norway and Sweden. Finland's and Denmark's low production and high import is caused by high fuel prices and costs related to CO2 -emissions. The least effective and heaviest polluting power plants seem to find it profitable to keep production low with the current electricity prices. At the end of week 32, the filling level in the Norwegian hydropower reservoirs was 82.2 percent, which is up 1.1 percentage points from last week. The filling level is now 12.9 percentage points higher than one year ago. The effective inflow to the Norwegian hydropower system was about 10 percent above average in week 32. So far this year, the inflow has been 92 TWh, or 12 TWh above normal. ------------------------------- Contact person at the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate: Nils Spjeldnæs NVE, tel: +47 2295 9274