30 MW expansion of Reykjanes geothermal power plant, Iceland about to start
Turbine in Reykjanes plant of HS Orka, Iceland (source: flickr/ Christopher Grote, creative commons)
lxrichter
14 Jan 2021
About 200 jobs are expected to be created with construction agreements to be signed this week on the 30 MW expansion of the Reykjanes geothermal power plant in Iceland.
HS Orka has decided to start twelve billion ISK construction work on the expansion of Reykjanesvirkjun. Contracts with three Icelandic contractor companies, Ístak, Hamar and Rafal, will be signed this week in Iceland.
Construction is to then kick off immediately and is expected to create two hundred new jobs during the construction period over the next two years, so local news outlet Stod 2 News.
The geothermal power plant, which now has 100 MW of installed power generation capacity, will be expanded by 30 MW and the energy will be offered for sale on the public market. According to information from HS Orka, no new wells need to be drilled, but the intention is to make better use of geothermal fluid, which already exists and has flowed unchecked into the sea near Reykjanes.
Construction of Reykjanesvirkjun began in the summer of 2004, but the main premise was an agreement on electricity sales to the Nordurál smelter at Grundartangi. Electricity production began in the spring of 2006 in two 50 MW turbines. The history of Reykjanesvirkjun can be traced back to 1997, when work on environmental assessment began, but the first experimental well was drilled in 1998.
Here you can see the news from Stöd 2 in Iceland (in Icelandic):
