Orlando Power Station

Orlando Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station in Soweto, South Africa. The power station was commissioned at the end of the Second World War and served Johannesburg for over 50 years.

Orlando Power Station
Orlando Power Station and Cooling Towers
Location of Orlando Power Station in South Africa
CountrySouth Africa
LocationSoweto
Coordinates26°15′14″S 27°55′30″E
StatusDecommissioned
Commission date1942 [1]
Decommission date1998[1]
Owner(s)City of Johannesburg
Thermal power station
Primary fuelCoal[2]
Power generation
Nameplate capacity300 Megawatt[2]
External links
CommonsRelated media on Commons

History

Planning for the construction of Orlando started in 1935, as the electricity demand of Johannesburg was rising faster than what could be met with the existing City Generating Station located in downtown Johannesburg. The location for the station was selected due to its proximity to water supply for coolant and railway lines for the delivery of coal.[1] Construction started in 1939 with Merz & McLellan as consulting engineers, but completion was delayed due to the outbreak of the Second World War. The last phase of construction was completed in 1955. Until 1990 two Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST steam engines (Nos. 7805 Elizabeth and 7398 George) were used to move incoming coal trains through a wagon tipper at the power plant.[3]

The station was decommissioned in 1998 after 56 years of service.[1]

In 2006 work was started to transform the site of the power station into an entertainment and business centre.[4]

On 25 June 2014, the decommissioned power plant collapsed, killing 1 and trapping 5 others in the rubble.[5]

Climber rap jumping down the cooling towers.

Cooling towers
Decommissioned cooling towers with vivid decoration in 2014

The two cooling towers are a prominent landmark in Soweto. They were built in 1951 to supplement the spray pond cooling system as this source of cooling was running at its capacity.[1]

Being supplied by sewage effluent from the Klipspruit Sewage Works, the spray ponds at Orlando were the first in South Africa to make use of this ready supply of coolant liquid.[6]

Both towers are painted, one functioning as an advertising billboard and the other containing the largest mural painting in South Africa.[7] The towers are also used for bungee and BASE jumping from a platform between the top of the two towers as well as a bungee swing into one of the towers.[8][9]

In film and TV

The tower was used for a Fast Forward on the seventh season of The Amazing Race. The task was for one team (Ray & Deana in particular) to walk across a suspension bridge spanning one of the cooling towers 30 storeys above the ground.[10] In the movie Chappie the power station is the headquarter of the protagonists, the two iconic cooling towers and the main building are decorated with typical Die Antwoord artwork.[11] The towers also appeared on the Dutch television series Wie is de Mol? where contestants in the premiere of the show's thirteenth season bungee jumped off of the towers.[12]

gollark: It would probably report it several times over, actually.
gollark: PotatOS occupies about 300KB of storage.
gollark: No. You can't. You literally can't, there's not enough storage for it.
gollark: Did you try the experimental potatOS build I suggested?
gollark: It still takes storage.

See also

References
  1. Krige, Sue. "Orlando Power Station - a legacy of POWER". Orlando Towers. Archived from the original on 20 February 2010. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  2. "The Johannesburg Electricity Department operates one of the largest municipally owned undertakings in the world" (PDF). Johannesburg City Council. 1956. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  3. Conradie, Pieter (2009-05-11). "Johannesburg City Power, Reuven Head Office, 0-6-0ST "Elizabeth" RSHN 7805/1954". Retrieved 7 January 2010.
  4. Dlamini, Ndaba (2006-02-23). "Orlando Ekhaya development a new dawn for Soweto". City of Johannesburg. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  5. http://citizen.co.za/201279/abandoned-power-station-comes-crashing-down/
  6. Grant, George; Flinn, Taffy (1992). Watershed Town. The History of the Johannesburg City Engineer's Department. Johannesburg City Council. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
  7. Sindane, Lucky (2005-04-15). "Soweto calls for investors". City of Johannesburg. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  8. "about us". Orlando Towers (Pty) Ltd. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  9. "the ABYSS". Orlando Towers (Pty) Ltd. 2010-01-07. Retrieved 7 January 2010.
  10. ""I've Been Wanting a Face-Lift for a Long Time - Leg 5" - March 29". Game Show Newsnet. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  11. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1823672/locations
  12. den Dekker, Marjolein (March 8, 2013). "Spannende finale Wie is de Mol?" [Exciting final Who is the Mole?]. Afrika.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved December 26, 2019.
External images
Set of photographs by Pavel Tcholakov showing the decay of the structure since its decommissioning
Ex-Orlando Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST locomotive George
Ex-Orlando Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST locomotive Elizabeth
Bungee jumping from the towers
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.