690 MW Hydropower Plant Karahnjukar / Iceland

Period: 2003 - 2007
Customer: Landsvirkjun, Reykjavik, Iceland
Country: Karahnjukar / Island

Technical description:     

In 2002 the Ministry of Industry, Iceland, Landsvirkjun and Alcoa Inc. of USA signed an agreement about the construction of 690 MW Karahnjukarvirkjun which shall supply energy for a new aluminum smelter in eastern Iceland. The plant will produce finally 360,000 tons of aluminum per year. Jules Verne’s story of the phantastic »Journey to the Center of Earth« took its outset on an island made of fire and ice – in the secret crater of Sneffel Yocul on Iceland.
      
DSD NOELL revived the commencement of this phantastic journey by furnishing and installing the penstock for the two vertical shafts each embedded 420 m deep into the rocks of the islandic fjordland.

For Karahnjukar hydroelectric powerplant DSD NOELL designed,supplied and erected during 2003-2007:

• 2 penstocks with a length of 550 m each, 3.4 m diameter,waterheight, 723 m and a total tonnage of 4,600 tons
• 3 butterfly valves, inner diameter 3.6 m

     
The two 420 m vertical penstocks are up to now the biggest in Europe regarding height and diameter.
The Eiffeltower in Paris has, compared to that, only 324 m