Geothermal district heating

Geothermal Division/Utility Department consists of a group of engineers with long experience and in-depth knowledge of designing district heating systems.  The Verkís engineers have designed most of Iceland's district heating systems, starting from the harnessing of the geothermal resource, pumping stations, main transmission pipelines, distribution systems, sub-stations, storage tanks and house-connections.  As an example of projects in this field is almost the entire district heating system of Reykjavik Energy, Sudurnes Regional Power and District Heating, Akureyri District Heating and HAB (Akranes and Borgarfjödur District Heating).

The department's engineers also have broad experience of designing both for municipal authorities as well as power plants in geothermal areas.

  The Utility Department of Verkís possesses powerful computer software to analyse and design complex district heating systems and  large piping systems, for steady state and transient flow alike.

Furthermore, calculations of flow surges due to sudden load changes in piping systems can be performed, such as might occur in cold water utilities during intense fire fighting, or in case of sudden pump trip.

Other projects of similar nature, but smaller in scale, are for example piping systems in buildings such as sprinkler systems.

Verkís engineers have participated actively in a number of projects abroad.  One of these is the geothermal district heating in Galanta town in Slovakia, where our engineers were responsible for design, tender, project management and start-up of the district heating system.  Verkís engineers have also participated in district heating projects in China and Turkey among others.  

The total number of staff in the Utilities Department is 12 and the Department Manager is Oddur B. Björnsson, Mechanical Engineer, Ph.D.