East Perth Power Station - History

History

The Power Station was constructed between 1913 and 1916 by the Western Australian State Government, which announced that the facility would generate all the electricity needed in the Perth Metropolitan area. The site of East Perth was chosen because coal could easily be delivered there by rail and because the enormous quantities of cooling water required by the condensing plant could easily be drawn from the Swan River. Construction was completed at a total cost of £538,000.

In the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s new power generators were added to the facility to meet the city's growing demand for power. By 1948 the station had an array of power generating sources.

In 1968 the station converted from coal to oil, but six years later returned to coal firing. The station was decommissioned and closed in December 1981, as more advanced and cheaper methods of electricity generation made the facility redundant.

The East Perth Power Station is considered to be one of the State's most significant industrial heritage buildings. It includes a range of remnant machinery and equipment that is believed to be unique in the world because it contains the five different stages of power generation technology that occurred in the 20th century.

Read more about this topic:  East Perth Power Station

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)

    History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
    Henry Ford (1863–1947)

    The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.
    Emma Goldman (1869–1940)