Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project

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Building site

The Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project, located at 64°55′N 15°50′WCoordinates: 64°55′N 15°50′W, involves damming two rivers in eastern Iceland—the Jökulsá í Fljótsdal, source to the famous "Milky Lake" of Lagarfljót, and the Jökulsá á Dal aka Jökulsá á Brú—to produce hydroelectricity to power a new aluminium smelting plant that is being built by Alcoa in the town of Reyðarfjörður. It is the largest construction project ever in Iceland, with completion scheduled for 2009. The project is funded by Landsvirkjun (The National Power Company) which will operate the dam once it is finished. The Italian company Impregilo is the largest contractor working on the dams^[1]. The total cost (2005 estimation) for the hydropower project will be 90 billion ISK (about 1.0 billion EUR/1.2 billion USD, 3 000 EUR per citizen of Iceland)^[2].

Five major dams are being built, of which the largest will be 193 m high and 730 m long. The Hálslón reservoir will be 57 km² on the surface, and provide a flow of 110 m³/s, enough to generate 4,600 GWh a year of electricity, at a maximum power of 690 MW.

The dams have been the frequent subject of protests by environmentalists; the area is at the heart of the second largest unspoiled wilderness in Europe and covers about 1000 square kilometres in total. The project as a whole has also been criticised heavily for lack of broad-sightedness, such as in the book Draumalandið. Some criticism on staff conditions was raised during the beginning of the project. Those issues have apparently been dealt with for the most part. Most of the staff, about 70%, were imported from other European countries.

The building of the dam has been completed. A 450 m (1476 ft) deep vertical steel lining (penstock) is currently being built in situ by the German company DSD-NOELL (Würzburg). It will be followed by the power station, which will be located even deeper in the mountain. In total, more than 4,000 tons of steel will be used for the steel liner.

The project was documented in a MegaStructures program of the National Geographic Channel, and the Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering.