Rising demand
Electrification, industry, and data-driven load keep pushing consumption upward — faster than new capacity is being added.
Fjallavirkjun — Fjallapower in English — is a proposal and a body of technical analysis making the case that Iceland must build new hydropower capacity to meet rising demand. The work is authored by engineer Skúli Jóhannsson, drawing on four decades in the country's power sector.
Iceland already runs on renewable electricity — but demand keeps climbing while new generation lags behind. The reports below argue the gap is no longer hypothetical: the country's power balance is tightening, and decisions taken now will shape the next generation.
Electrification, industry, and data-driven load keep pushing consumption upward — faster than new capacity is being added.
Reservoir levels, transmission limits, and dry years leave less and less margin between what the grid can supply and what it must.
Iceland's glacial rivers carry enormous, largely unrealised potential — the scale that a comparison of Dettifoss and Niagara makes vivid.
Rather than an opinion, Fjallapower is an engineering argument. It quantifies Iceland's need, examines what the rivers can deliver, and sets out why new hydropower is the responsible way to close the gap.
Why rising demand and a tightening power balance make new generation capacity necessary.
A comparison that puts the sheer scale of Iceland's glacial rivers in perspective.
The argument for the proposal, addressed directly to Iceland's energy leadership.
Fjallapower is the work of Skúli Jóhannsson, an engineer with around forty years of energy consulting in Iceland, including with Landsvirkjun, the National Power Company.
The reports are published through Annað veldi, the platform he runs with Hákon Skúlason — a record of independent analysis on Iceland's energy system built up over two decades.
Read the reports, weigh the argument, and get in touch if you'd like to discuss the case for new hydropower.