Reykjanes Power Plant

Electricity production at Reykjanesvirkjun started in the month of May in 2006. Machine 1 was commissioned in the middle of May and machine 2 at the end of the same month. The design of the power plant is such that it is generally controlled remotely from a control center in Svartsengi.

Unlike the power plant in Svartsengi, Reykjanesvirkjun is only a power plant consisting of two 50 MW dual-flow turbines with sea-cooled condensers, but such a system was a novelty in Iceland at the time when the power plant was built. The turbines use a total of up to 4000 liters per second in separate pumping systems, which is a similar amount to the average flow of the Elliða River.

The cooling water from Reykjanesvirkjun is a fully utilized resource and a textbook example of how resource flows during geothermal utilization can contribute to a circular economy. When the condensers have been cooled with seawater, the temperature of the cooling water rises from 8-10 degrees to 30-33 degrees. That product is called ylsjör and is brought to a nearby land fish farm. It enables companies to grow warm sea species that otherwise cannot be grown in the northern hemisphere.

Industrial heat supply is also operated at Reykjanesvirkjun, but heat from the power plant is led in a closed heat supply system to nearby companies that use the heat to dry fish products.

HS Orka owns about 50 hectares of industrial plots at Reykjanesvirkjun. They have been sub-planned and are ready for the development of various types of industry that could be part of Auðlindagarð HS Orka's operations.