Enhancing Power System Utilisation: Tools and Insights from Norway

• Toolbox with Norwegian examples for increasing transmission grid capacity and power system utilisation, structured into asset‑based measures, grid operation and planning, and customer‑side flexibility.

• Quantified capacity increases achieved through asset‑based measures such as temperature uprating of overhead lines and dynamic line rating.

• Demonstration of how operational and market‑based measures, including system protection schemes, bidding zones, flow‑based market coupling, and risk‑based decision‑making, enable operation closer to physical limits while maintaining system security.

• Demonstration of how customer‑side flexibility, supported by price signals and non‑firm connection agreements, enables earlier grid access and more efficient use of limited grid capacity. Asset-based measures include temperature uprating of overhead lines and dynamic line rating

(DLR). Temperature uprating allows lines to operate at higher conductor temperatures, increasing transmission capacity by up to 40% for some lines. DLR uses sensor and weather data to provide more accurate thermal limits, yielding 10–30% additional capacity in real-time operations.

Grid operation and planning measures encompass system protection schemes, bidding zones, flow-based market coupling, risk-based decision-making, and improved grid connection assessment. Through system protection schemes, many transmission corridors can operate beyond normal N‑1‑based ratings, achieving capacity increases of 30–50%. The introduction of flow-based market coupling in the Nordic day-ahead market has increased maximum power flows across key transmission corridor by up to 23%, demonstrating the potential of marketbased solutions to improve grid utilisation. Risk-based decision-making replaces the deterministic N-1 criterion with a probabilistic approach, balancing outage risk against the benefits of increased capacity and faster customer connections.

Customer-side flexibility measures focus on leveraging price signals from the electricity market, designing flexibility markets, and implementing non-firm grid connections. Over 90% of Norwegian customers have dynamic electricity contracts, and demand response analyses show reductions in consumption during high-price periods. Non-firm connection agreements allow earlier grid access under specific operational constraints, with nearly 2,000 MW of consumption reserved under such agreements by the end of 2025.

The paper concludes that Norway’s TSO has successfully increased grid capacity and utilisation through a combination of several bidding zones, temperature uprating of existing assets, and system protection schemes. In the future, dynamic capacities, demand-side flexibility, and new operational strategies that go beyond traditional N-1 limits are considered to have interesting potentials. These measures offer scalable solutions for other TSOs facing similar challenges.