Two windmills, each generating about 900 kilowatts of electricity, will be raised in Iceland in the next two weeks.
As anyone who has visited or lives in Iceland can attest, wind is one thing the country has in ample supply. The national power company Landsvirkjun has had an interest in exploring wind power since at least 2010, when research into the field was first initiated.
A research group assembled by Landsvirkjun in 2010, working in conjunction with Icewind―a pan-Scandinavian team looking to develop wind power in the Nordic countries―concluded last year that wind power is a very realistic option for Iceland. They believe that building wind turbines in the southwest would be the best option. Landsvirkjun then came to the conclusion that the best location would be near the Búrfellsvirkjun plant in southwest Iceland.
< href="http://www.ruv.is/frett/reisa-tvaer-vindmyllur-hja-burfellsvirkjun">RÚV now reports that two windmills will be raised at that location over the next two weeks.
The mills were manufactured by the German company Enercon, with each mast measuring 55 metres tall. By comparison, the church Hallgrímskirkja is 74.5 metres tall. Each mill costs about 163 million ISK.
Hörður Arnarson, the director of Landsvirkjun, told reporters that while the windmills are presently too expensive to reaslistically add significantly to the current energy grid, the hope is that further research on wind power in Iceland will eventually lead to it being used as a viable energy source.
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