A Word from The CEO

2017 has been a good, busy year for Fjordkraft. We have strengthened our position in what we do best and established ourselves in new markets. Most importantly of all, we have gone further than ever to give our customers more for their money. This work has paid off and has brought us closer to our vision of Fjordkraft supplying electricity to two million people, at home and at work. 

Five years ago, Fjordkraft embarked on a journey to become the most attractive electricity retailer in Norway. I am pleased to be able to say that 2017 has been a milestone year on this journey.

We have been developing our sales channels and customer service for several years and have now cemented our position as Norway’s strongest brand in the electricity supply industry. Our orange logo and mascot are easily recognisable, and an incredible 95 per cent of the population of Norway knows that Fjordkraft is a power supplier.

In 2017, our sales work has really borne fruit. Fjordkraft now supplies electricity to more than 1.2 million people, and in the third quarter we also became the first ever electricity retailer in Norway to achieve a 19 per cent market share.

This motivates us to continue – and to do more. It also provides us with an excellent starting point to branch out into new business areas and challenge existing players, in order to give our customers more for their money.

Challenging the mobile market

In the first half of 2017, we did just that and launched mobile telephony. We set out to compete with the established providers, by offering extra cheap subscriptions to our electricity customers, in line with our aim to provide power contracts and other benefits that give our customers more for their money.

This launch was an important milestone for Fjordkraft. We demonstrated that we can use our brand, customer service and distribution capacity in other markets to give our customers more for their money. In addition, it was very educational for us as a company, facing new competitors and other players than those we know from our original industry. The mobile telephony market is marked by high marketing pressure and rapid innovation. This is both challenging and inspiring. We were also impressed by the high level of internal commitment revealed in connection with the training and preparations for the launch in April. This new business area has been a great success so far, and we will apply the lessons we have learned when considering new areas and benefits for our customers in the future.

The customer is the boss

At Fjordkraft, we adhere to the philosophy that the customer is the boss. Our customer promise is to give you more for your money and help simplify your everyday life. This is the guiding principle for all our work. In 2017 our customer service centre helped more than 2,000 people every day. We also made it easier for our customers to contact us, be it by phone, chat or e-mail. In addition to building good customer relations, this also allows us to discover new needs and new opportunities for Fjordkraft.

In 2017 we experienced one of the biggest changes in the end-user market in many years. A change in the regulations means electricity customers can now pay for their electricity consumption and grid rental on a single invoice. Fjordkraft started billing consumers for grid rental on behalf of the grid companies. For our customers, this was a long-awaited improvement, eliminating 10 million bills a year. Consolidated billing also ensures identical competition conditions for all power suppliers, which is positive for the industry and the customers alike.

Changes in the electricity market

One of the goals in the National Transport Plan, published in summer 2017, was to reduce emissions from road traffic by 50 per cent by 2030. Electric vehicles are central to this solution. At the end of 2017, there were almost 140,000 electric cars in Norway. There are also some 70,000 chargeable hybrids. Roughly every tenth electric car in the world is registered in Norway. The number of motorists who need to charge their car at home is thus growing rapidly and looks set to continue increasing in the future. In February 2018 we launched simple, safe vehicle charging at home for our customers.

We are also seeing more households wanting to produce their own electricity. Prosumers, who produce electricity by means of solar panels or other ultralocal production, entail challenges for both the electricity grid and the power supply industry. Producing more renewable energy is a fantastic way to replace fossil energy, but it also places high demands on the grid. We need to work out how we can distribute the costs fairly and still have a well-developed, reliable power grid with high capacity in the future. In 2017 the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) sent a controversial proposal on network tariffs out for consultation. Fjordkraft believes that prosumers and the public solutions must work together to help ensure a sustainable development.

No-one can do everything, but everyone can do something

As an electricity retailer, sustainability and climate neutrality are issues that are close to our heart. It is clear to us that more commercial players need to focus on their greenhouse emissions and how they can become climate neutral.

As a distributor of non-physical products, our own climate footprint is relatively small, but we want to contribute in a sustainable manner.  In 2017 we therefore decided that Fjordkraft will require all its business partners to become climate neutral. We have called this initiative Klimanjaro, and you can read more about it in this report. To date, suppliers with a combined climate footprint 70 times larger than Fjordkraft’s have signed a declaration of intent to be climate neutral by 2019. We are very proud of this achievement.

Our solution is not perfect, but if Norway is to comply with the two-degree goal from the Paris Agreement, businesses must do their part. Fjordkraft wants to create a domino effect, and we are therefore urging our suppliers to set the same requirements to their suppliers.

Further growth

2017 has been a good year, but our goals are ambitious. To succeed in the future, we must strike a balance between the interests of our customers, owners and employees. The excellent results we have achieved in 2017 reflect a concerted effort, and the entire organisation has done brilliant work.  Everything we do is rooted in our values: Make it easier – Be friendly – Create value. We are thus also very well equipped to meet the targets and challenges of 2018 and continue on our way towards our vision: Fjordkraft supplies electricity to more than two million people – at home and at work. 

Rolf Barmen

CEO