From 27 to 31 July 2026, fellows of the GRÓ Geothermal Training Programme toured geothermal sites in west and north Iceland. Among them was Elbek Ochilov of Navoi State University of Mining and Technology, the programme’s first fellow from Uzbekistan. Lectures in Reykjavík on 23 and 24 July prepared the group for the trip.
The first stop was Deildartunguhver, the highest-flow hot spring in Europe, where water emerges at 97 °C at about 180 litres per second. Part of it heats the towns of Borgarnes and Akranes, 34 km and 64 km away. The fellows saw the spring’s pumping station, the remains of Snorri Sturluson’s medieval farm at Reykholt with its hot pool and the tunnel between the bath and the house, and a cucumber greenhouse heated with geothermal water at Laugaland in Borgarfjörður.
On 28 July, Sigurveig Árnadóttir, Norðurorka’s project manager for research and maintenance, and chief engineer Pétur Freyr Jónsson took the group around the utility’s production areas at Laugaland in Eyjafjörður and at Hjalteyri, where it found hot water in 2003. The fellows saw a pumping station and well houses, heard about geothermal exploration in the area, and saw how Akureyri’s district heating is controlled from the office. The fellows also visited a greenhouse at Hveravellir and the Silfurstjarnan salmon farm in Öxarfjörður, which mixes geothermal water with cold fresh water to control conditions in its tanks.
On 30 July the national power company Landsvirkjun hosted the group at Þeistareykir, a 90 MW plant whose two 45 MW units began operating in 2017 and 2018, and at Krafla, which began generating electricity in 1978 and now runs two 30 MW turbines. Near Krafla the fellows saw the site of IDDP-1, a deep-drilling well that struck rhyolite magma at 2,104 m in June 2009. The fellows also saw the high-temperature areas of Námafjall, Hveravellir in the highlands and Geysir.
Why it matters
Uzbekistan is considering geothermal energy mainly for heating and greenhouses, with power generation further off. The excursion showed working examples of each: a district heating network fed by a hot spring, greenhouses and a fish farm run on geothermal water, and power stations in high-temperature fields.
