Heat pump station formally opened in Vestmannaeyjar

A heat pump station was formally opened in Vestmannaeyjar in May. Verkís was supervision engineer for the electrical design of the building for the station, for HS Veitur.

Verkís was responsible for, among other things, preliminary design and final design. The station provides about 93% of annual thermal energy for central heating in Vestmannaeyjar. The thermal power of the station is now about 10 MW but will be 13 MW when completed.

In the heat pump station sea is used as the heat source for HS Veitur‘s district heating. The sea water is cooled from 6-8°C (42.8-46.4°F) to about 2°C (35.6°F) to heat the water in the system from 34°C (93.2°F) to 77°C (170.6°F). The sea is derived from 40 m deep holes witch are located in the basement of the station and on it‘s plots. The water board in the holes is at about eight meters deep.

With the heat pump station the electricity consumption of the district heating plant about a third of what was previousy, when it was heated with electricity. Chilled sea from the heat pump station is among other things used in fish processing.

Initially, a district heating system was laid in Vestmannaeyjar in 1976, and the majority of the town had gained access to it in 1980. Heat from the lava from the Vestmannaeyjar eruption in 1973 was the source from the heat in the beginning and the next ten years. Over the years, several ways have been used to provide the residents of Vestmannaeyjar district heating: oil boilers, electrode boilers and heat from waste incineration plant and surplus heat from fishmeal factories.

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