Reservoir Watch
Europe's largest hydropower reserve. Norway's grid runs on hydropower, so NVE reports reservoir storage by electricity price area as energy (TWh) and filling degree (%), not water volume.
National fill
63.6%
Energy stored
55.6 TWh
Capacity
87 TWh
Price areas
5
Storage is measured as energy, by price area. NVE's Magasinstatistikk publishes reservoir storage as filling degree (%) and energy (TWh) for Norway's five electricity price areas (NO1–NO5) and nationally — there is no public per-reservoir feed, so this is the level Norway is tracked at. Fill % is usable energy in store ÷ usable capacity, comparable to other countries; absolute figures are TWh, not hm³.
Norway at a glance
National filling degree
63.6%
55.6 of 87 TWh stored
Price areas
5
Total capacity
87.4 TWh
Energy stored
55.6 TWh
Coverage: NVE Magasinstatistikk (weekly filling degree by elspot price area). Last reading: 2026-09-06.
National filling degree — multi-year
Price-area map
Click an area to exploreBy price area
Sorted by capacitySouth-West Norway
NO2 · Kristiansand
Filling degree
46.1%
Northern Norway
NO4 · Tromsø
Filling degree
90.3%
Western Norway
NO5 · Bergen
Filling degree
63.9%
Central Norway
NO3 · Trondheim
Filling degree
63.3%
South-East Norway
NO1 · Oslo
Filling degree
72.5%
About Norway’s reservoirs
Norway holds Europe’s largest reservoir-based hydropower system — roughly 87 TWh of usable storage capacity, close to half of all reservoir storage in Europe. Hydropower supplies the large majority of Norwegian electricity, so the country’s reservoirs act as a continent-scale battery: filled by snowmelt and rain, drawn down to generate through winter.
Because storage is energy, NVE reports it as filling degree (%) and terawatt-hours rather than cubic metres, and at the level of the five electricity price areas (NO1–NO5) plus a national total. Filling typically bottoms out in late April–May before snowmelt, then refills through summer to peak in autumn. As of 2026-09-06, the national filling degree was 63.6%.
Dataset coverage
Tracked
5
reservoirs
With data
5
reservoirs
Tracked capacity
87,438
GWh
Source: NVE — Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (Magasinstatistikk)
Norway is tracked by electricity price area (NO1–NO5), not per reservoir — NVE publishes weekly filling degree at that level. Storage is reported as energy (TWh).