Verktækni - 2019, Qupperneq 70

70

Energy, CNRS, the University of Iceland, and Columbia
University.
Hellisheidi
Power Plant
2009 The Hellisheidi Power Station is the largest geothermal
powerstation in Iceland and the second largest in the world. It is
located in the Mt. Hengill area n Southwest Iceland. It gets its
energy from 30 drill holes each approx. 2000 m deep. It has now a
capacity of 303 MW of electricity and 133 MW of hot water, aiming
at 400 MW which would make it the most powerful power station
of its kind in the world.
Vadlaheida-
tunnel
2018 Vadlaheidargong is a toll tunnel in the north of Iceland along
Route 1, just east of Akureyri. It passes between Eyjafjordur and
Fnjoskadalur. It is 7.4 km (4.6 mi) long. The tunnel was planned to
open at the end of 2016 but due to massive leaks of both hot and
cold waters it had to be postponed.

The Development of Project Management Educational in Iceland
The first documented indication in Iceland of the evolution of project management as a formal
professional discipline can be traced back to 1967, when Egill Skuli Ingibergsson, an electrical engineer
and later the Mayor of Reykjavik City, participated in the first International European Internet Congress
in Vienna (E.S. Ingibergsson, personal communication, February 3, 2017). The topic of the conference
was the CPM method, and Mr Ingibergsson returned back to Iceland with the new ideas and started to
offer courses in CPM planning.
In 1974, Petur K. Maack returned from Denmark with a PhD degree in operational engineering. He
became a faculty member at the newly founded faculty of engineering in the University of Iceland where
he designed a course on operational management, and where project management was briefly
addressed. In 1975, an official course on project management was hosted by Stjornunarfelagid (“The
Management Society” Alþýðublaðið, 1975). This is the first documented course on formal project
management offered in Iceland.

In 1981, Daniel Gestsson went to Pittsburg, USA to study public administration and project management
at a university level. At that time the situation in Iceland was, according to Mr Gestsson, such that the
politicians “had all the power“ and they were “not too keen on giving too much power to professionals“
("Viðtal við Daníel Gestsson", 2014). In 1982, Mr Gestsson participated in a project management
conference in Stockholm, organised by the Nordic project management associations ("Nordnet“). There
he met Dr Morten Fangel, who agreed to come to Iceland and give courses on project management
("Viðtal við Daníel Gestsson", 2014). In 1984, Dr Fangel gave his first course on project management in
collaboration with the Center for Continuing Education at the University of Iceland, and after that he has
offered project management training in Iceland on a regular basis.

In 1998, the first university course in Iceland specifically focusing on project management was offered at
undergraduate level by Tryggvi Sigurbjarnarson, a faculty member of Industrial and Mechanical
Engineering at the University of Iceland. In the year 2000, a full academic position in project
management was created at the University and Dr. Helgi Thor Ingason took on the position. In the same
year, project management was taught for the first time as a special course at Reykjavik University by
Thordur Vikingur. In 2003, a 24 ECTS diploma course on project management called “Project