How planes, skiers and snowmobiles could lend an edge in energy investing

Trekking through Sweden's secluded areas to measure the density of the snow there is the key to capturing the best returns in the Nordic electricity market, thinks trained meteorologist Ivan Fore Svegaarden, managing director at TradeNRDpower.

So he intends to hire skiers and snowmobilers, along with some airplanes overhead, to take those measurements.

Inspired by meteorology, Mr. Svegaarden said he was prompted to search for the weather data — one of the key drivers of the electricity market — in Sweden, which has low data coverage and significant influence on the Nordic power price.

“Our aim is to assess at which point weather as a factor moves in a different direction than other price drivers in this market,” Mr. Svegaarden said. “We will do that by assessing the water from melting snow.”

Mr. Svegaarden intends to launch the Nordic Power Fund, aimed at private and institutional investors, in the second half of 2018. It will use the data to invest in electricity futures.

The fund's target is 1 billion Norwegian kroner ($119 million) to be raised in the next three to four years. Mr. Svegaarden and his team plan to get a license to market the fund in Norway and later also in other European countries.