Budarháls Power Plant

Budarháls Power Plant will have an installed capacity of around 90 MW and a generating capacity of about 630 GWh/year.

A dam will lie across the course of the River Köldukvísl, a short distance above the confluence of that river and the River Tungnaá, and over the old course of the River Spordöldukvísl (now the tailrace from Hrauneyjarfoss Power Plant) further upstream. The dam will be a traditional embankment dam with a core, filter, base fill and stone protection. An intake reservoir, Spordöldulón, will form above the dam, with a planned area of around 7 km2 during normal operation.

The 420-m-long intake channel running through the rock layers of Budarháls will be excavated using explosives. A concrete intake structure with two channels will be located at the end of the cutting. They lead to an intake tunnel that is 4 km long from its entrance to the balancing cistern.

The powerhouse will be above ground, built on the slopes of Budarháls near Sultartangalón. The plans specify two generators. A tailrace channel will be excavated from the powerhouse; it will run 330 m into Sultartangalón.

Preparatory work on this installation was carried out in 2001-02, when excavations were made for part of the powerhouse, penstocks, intake, balancing cistern and part of the intake channel. A 7 km approach road was also laid and surfaced from the main road (Road 26) up to the proposed Budarháls Power Plant, passing between the Sultartangi and Hrauneyjafoss installations. The road crosses a bridge over the River Tungnaá a short distance upstream from the old cable crossing, a kilometre above Hald. A 6 km connecting road was built from the location of the proposed dam to the powerhouse access road.