13.10.2011

The planned completion of construction will be at the end of 2013. The estimated power from Búðarháls Power Station will be about 95 MW which is equivalent to a power capacity of up to 585 GW hours per annum.

Landsvirkjun's main contractor is Ístak hf. which won the Landsvirkjun call for tenders for the construction of Búðarháls Power Station. The work is planned for the period 2010 to 2013 and both of the power stations turbines will be operational before the end of 2013.

The Búðarháls Power Station intake reservoir, Sporðöldulón, will be created with a 2.1 km long dam over Köldukvísl, a little to the north of the confluence of Köldukvísl and Tungnaá just below the Hrauneyjarfoss Power Station. The maximum height of the dam will be about 24 m and the estimated area covered by the reservoir is 6 km². From the Sporðöldulón reservoir there will be a headrace channel to Búðarháls from where the water will pass through a 4 km headrace tunnel to the powerhouse.

There will be a 330 m tailrace channel from the power house to the Sultartangalón reservoir. A 220 kW high tension line, 7 km long, will be erected from Búðarháls Power Station to the Hrauneyjafoss line to connect the Power Station with the National Grid. The power house at Búðarháls Power Station will be above ground and excavated into the slopes of Búðarháls at the Sultartangalón reservoir.

It is estimated that most employment will be in the summer of 2012 when about 300 workers will be employed on the project. It is expected that over the whole of 2011 and 2012 there will be about 200 workers on average employed on the project.  It is estimated that the total number of man years of work created by the construction of Búðarháls Power Station for the duration of the whole project will be about 6 to 700.

The division between different professions is estimated as follows:

• Workers        40%
• Technicians    25%
• Drivers           10%
• Tradesmen     25%
• Total              100%

Advertisements were published for tenders for the building work at Búðarháls Power Station in June 2010. Subsequent to the opening of the tenders an agreement was made with Ístak hf. for the construction of the power house, the earth dam and the headrace tunnels along with related constructions.  The first construction work was excavation for the powerhouse, surge tank and creation of facilities.

In October 2010 tenders were opened for machinery and electrical equipment for the power station. Tenders were received from four foreign manufacturers and at the beginning of December an agreement was made with the German company Voith-Hydro. The tender documents allowed for 240 MW turbines in the Power Station, and an appendix was made to the agreement with Voith Hydro for larger turbines so that their combined power would be about 95 MW.

The following agreements have been signed for the construction of Búðarháls Power Station:

Other minor agreements