Producer
Landsvirkjun (National Power Company of Iceland)
Landsvirkjun (Reykjavik; 100% owned by the Icelandic state) is Iceland's national power company and the dominant electricity supplier for Icelandic industry. It operates 15 hydropower stations and 2 geothermal stations with ~2,000 MW installed capacity — producing nearly all of Iceland's industrial-grade electricity. The company holds long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) directly with Iceland's two aluminum smelters: ISAL (Alcan/Rio Tinto Alcan; 188,000 t/yr) and the ÍSAL expansion, and Straumsvík / Century Aluminum. Iceland's electricity is among the cheapest industrial power in Europe (~$30-40/MWh for smelters), enabling Iceland to host 800,000+ tonnes per year of primary aluminum capacity relative to a population of 370,000. Industrial customers including aluminum smelters consume ~75% of Iceland's total electricity generation.
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2 facilities
HCB — Cahora Bassa Dam, Tete Province, Mozambique →
MZTete Province
Cahora Bassa Dam (Mozambique; 2,075 MW; operated by Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa — 85% Mozambique state, 15% Portugal; on the Zambezi River) is the primary electricity source for the Mozal aluminum smelter (Maputo; ~550,000 t/yr; operated by South32 with BHP and Mitsubishi as shareholders). Mozal was built specifically because Cahora Bassa electricity is among Africa's cheapest industrial power. The transmission line from Cahora Bassa dam to Mozal crosses ~1,000 km of southern Africa — passing through or near areas with historical insurgency and infrastructure attack vulnerability. A 2021-2022 Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado province (near Mozambique's northern natural gas projects) demonstrated infrastructure vulnerability; the HV transmission corridor to Mozal runs through different terrain but exemplifies African industrial electricity concentration.
Landsvirkjun — Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant, Iceland →
ISEast Iceland
690 MW hydropower station in East Iceland; built 2007-2009 specifically to power the Alcoa/ÍSAL Fjarðaál aluminum smelter (346,000 t/yr) near Reyðarfjörður; Iceland's largest power plant. The dam's construction required damming the Jökulsá á Dal and Jökulsá í Fljótsdal glacial rivers — a highly controversial project (Kárahnjúkar dam protests). The Fjarðaál smelter contract was the primary justification for the entire USD 1B+ hydropower investment. Demonstrates how stranded Icelandic hydro resources specifically attract energy-intensive aluminum smelting industry.
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Hydroelectric Generation
80%Geothermal Generation
15%Green Hydrogen & Emerging Energy
5%
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Did you know2024
Landsvirkjun's renewable electricity powers three entirely different supply chains from the same Icelandic river systems: (1) aluminum smelting (~850,000 tonnes/year of "green aluminum" for aerospace and automotive), (2) silicon metal production (for solar panels and semiconductor-grade silicon), and (3) data centers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft use Iceland for renewable-powered cloud computing). A significant Landsvirkjun infrastructure failure — from volcanic activity, glacial outburst flooding (jokulhlaup), or earthquake damage — would simultaneously disrupt aluminum supply to aerospace manufacturers, silicon supply to solar panel producers, and cloud computing capacity to tech companies. The same Icelandic glaciers that make Landsvirkjun's power renewable also make its hydro infrastructure vulnerable to unique geological hazards.
Landsvirkjun ↗Origin2023
Landsvirkjun was established in 1965 specifically to provide power for Iceland's first aluminum smelter (ISAL) — the company and the aluminum industry were co-created from scratch by the Icelandic government as a development strategy. Iceland had no significant industry before the hydroelectric/aluminum combination was conceived in the early 1960s. The original insight was that Iceland's rivers (from glacial melt and rainfall) could generate cheap electricity that could attract electricity-intensive industries requiring more power than Iceland could ever consume domestically. This "renewable energy arbitrage" model attracted aluminum (Alcoa, Rio Tinto), ferrosilicon, and silicon metal industries to Iceland, making a small island nation of 370,000 people a significant global industrial materials producer.
Landsvirkjun ↗