Tímarit Verkfræðingafélags Íslands - 01.02.1984, Blaðsíða 16

jects that are planned in the near future
are also listed. A number of small scale
hydropower stations are operated
privately in the country (mainly by
farmers) but these are not listed in the
table. Similarly a large number of small
scale hydropower stations from the ear-
ly days of electrification of the country
are now out of use and therefore not
listed in the table. Some 99% of the
population have access to electricity
from public utilities, but 1% from
private utilities.
Nearly all hydropower stations in the
country up to 8 MW capacity have been
designed by lcelandic engineers. During
the period 1935—1960 a series of three
power plants were built in the river Sog
(No. 2, 15 and 20 in Table 1). The prin-
cipal consultant on this project was a
Norwegian engineering firm. The first
large hydropower plant in lceland was
Búrfell in the Thjórsá river (240 MW)
which was commissioned in 1969. The
World Bank partly financed the project
and in accordance with their rules
demanded that the design work be
under the responsibility of an engineer-
ing firm with experience in building
such large hydroprojects. The owner of
the project, the National Power Com-
pany, engaged an engineering company
from the U.S.A. for the work. Since
then two large hydropower plants have
been built in the Tungnaá river, a
tributary to the Thjórsá river, Sigalda
150 MW and Hrauneyjafoss 210 MW.
The former was partly financed by the
World Bank. In both cases the National
Power Company assigned the design
work to consortiums of foreign and
Icelandic engineering firms on a joint
venture basis. In the case of Sigalda
(commissioned in 1977), the companies
were from Switzerland and lceland, but
in Hrauneyjafoss (commissioned in
1981) the companies were from the
U.S.A. and Iceland. In the case of the
Hrauneyjafoss project the National
Power Company requested that most of
the construction drawings should be made
by the Icelandic firm whereas inspection
of the drawings and the calculations made
by the suppliers of the electrical and
mechanical equipment was done jointly
by the two firms. The National Power
Company has entrusted the planning
and design of the hydropower projects
now under construction to Icelandic
engineers. As can be seen in Table 1
there are plans to double the installed
hydropower capacity in the country.
This will probably be done within the
next two decades, the exact timing of
the individual projects being dependent
8 - TÍMARIT VFÍ 1984
on future decisions on whether to in-
crease energy intensive industries.
Since 1958, 12 main master plans
have been made for the development of
power projects in individual rivers or
river systems. Of these only 2 have been
made by foreign consultants (from the
U.S.A. in 1960 and from Norway in
1966). The foreign consultants based
their work largely on data and plans
supplied by Icelandic engineers and
hydrologists. The methodologies of the
two master plans made by the foreign
consultants have, however, been
adopted in later plans.
Due to the harsh climate in the coun-
try the design of power lines is a highly
skilful task. In the uninhabited highland
interior of the country the ice load on
the wires can for example be up to 54
kg/m and the wind speed caii reach up
to 65 m/s; these maximum values do
however never occur at the same time.
The accumulated length of high voltage
power lines in Iceland was in 1982 just
over 10,000 km, thereof the main power
lines with a voltage ranging from 33 to
220 kV are nearly 3,100 km in length.
Until about 1950, most power lines were
designed by foreign consultants, but
since then engineers of the State Electric
Power Works have done the design
work for all but the main power lines.
Until the mid 1970’s the main high
voltage power lines were designed by
foreign consultants, but recently the
design work has been taken over by
local engineers. A similar development
has taken place in the construction in-
dustry. All major hydropower plants
and transmission lines built until the
mid 1970’s were constructed by foreign
contractors or a consortium of foreign
and local contractors. The civil works
for the Hrauneyjafoss hydropower
plant were, however, mainly assigned to
Icelandic contractors. Based on this ex-
perience it may be assumed, that future
constructions of this kind will be carried
out by local contractors.
In 1982 an Icelandic consulting
engineering firm was for the first time
involved in the investigation and plan-
ning of a hydropower project in a
foreign country. The Icelandic firm is
working on the appraisal of a 10—20
MW power plant for Jakobshavn in
Greenland jointly with a Danish engi-
neering firm. The Icelandic firm was
engaged with particular reference to
their experience in the design and con-
struction of small scale power stations
in northern countries.
Geoscientific work for hydropower
projects has primarily been in the hands
of Icelandic geologists through the
decades, but until 1974 foreign con-
sultants supervised some parts of the
research work for the large power pro-
jects.
GEOTHERMAL DEVELOPMENT
Unlike the hydropower development
the geothermal work has almost entirely
been in the hands of Icelandic scientists
and engineers. The main reason for this
of course is that Iceland is one of the
pioneer countries in the world in harn-
essing geothermal energy and there ex-
isted no foreign experts in this field in
the early days of the development.
Geothermal energy is very important for
the national economy of Iceland as over
one third of the net energy consumption
of the country is from geothermal
resources. Most of the geothermal
energy is used for space heating. The
total installed capacity of geothermal
power in Iceland in 1982 is shown in
Table 2. The installed thermal capacity
Table 2.
Installed capacity of geothermal power
in Iceland in May 1982
Capacity
Type of utilization MWt MWe
Space heating 836
Greenhouses 51
Swimming pools 21
Industrial 50
Fish culture 2
Electricity 41
960 41
Note: The installed thermal capacity for space
heating is calculated with a disposal temperature of
35°C, which is common in the space heating
systems in Iceland.
(total 960 MWt) is calculated with a
disposal temperature of 35°C which is
common in the space heating systems in
Iceland. Using the average air
temperature in Iceland 5°C as the
reference temperature the total would
be approximately 1480 MWt (3). In
1982 about 75% of the population lived
in houses heated by geothermal water.
The district heating systems are general-
ly owned and operated by the
municipalities. The Municipal Heating
Service of Reykjavik serves about
114,400 people and is the largest
geothermal heating service in the world
with an installed capacity of about 520
MWt (assuming 35°C as the disposal
temperature). Its operation started in