The obligation to heal when the market hurts - national regulation of the electricity sector and local industrial impacts

The article offers an institutional-comparative approach to a discussion about national regulation and its local consequences. The industrial regulations formulated after Norwegian independence in 1905 allowed public control of transactions concerning rights to Norwegian waterfalls. Efforts to restructure energy-intensive industry have often encountered local demands for the maintenance of local production. Due to the regulations, companies were forced to negotiate with the state and later also with local authorities. Deregulation of the electricity sector in the early 1990s facilitated a radical restructuring as companies stopped using electricity in local production and instead exported it from the region where it was generated. However, companies are still obliged to make different kinds of compensation to the host locality. The article presents cases of single company towns in Telemark and Nordland counties in Norway.