Battersea Power Station London UK ( 3 Views )

Battersea power station in London has always been one of my favorite landmarks.. It has sadly been disused for about 30 years now and is slowly dying . Many companies have come up with plans to develop the site that have all fallen through for one reason or another.
The power station was also featured on Pink Floyd's album cover of Animals

Battersea Power Station revamp to begin in 2013
Read more here

Video of project vision

Dennis Sayles posted four photos with the comment: "Battersea Power Station, England, Operational 1927-1983."

Brett Wanamaker shared

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Marc Kenton posted

Hmmmm. I wonder what will happen if I turn this switch?

Technicians look at a wall of meters for readings from the transformers and feeders at the Battersea Power Station, London, 1932.

Charles Wayman: Control room A is preserved and is available to hire for functions and events, control room B is a bar and some of the panels were used in the decor of the area.

Dan Ban: Charles Wayman The B station control room was destroyed back in the 80's by Sir John Broom. The cocktail bar is the actually the B station auxiliary switch room, the control room was one floor above what is now the Bar.

Brett Wanamaker shared

John Makadi commented on Dennis' post
How I learned about Battersea in my youth.
Chuck Ross: Didn't it also appear in one of the James Bond movies?

Alain Cuny posted
The Battersea Power Station, London in 2008.
Henry van Erp: With an glass-elevator in one of the chimneys.

Colyton, old pictures posted

The photograph of Battersea Power Station taken at dusk between 1955 and 1960 captures the iconic structure in all its industrial glory. Known for its four distinctive chimneys, the power station was a prominent feature of London's skyline, symbolizing the city’s industrial might during the mid-20th century. The image showcases steam billowing from the chimneys, a testament to the station’s function as a coal-fired power plant, generating electricity for a growing metropolis.

At this time, Battersea Power Station was not only an engineering marvel but also a vibrant hub of activity, with lights illuminating the surrounding machinery and creating a striking contrast against the dusky sky. The sight reflected the bustling energy of post-war London, where industry played a crucial role in the city’s recovery and expansion.

Designated as a Grade II* listed building, Battersea Power Station has since become a beloved landmark, celebrated for its architectural significance and cultural heritage. Its redevelopment in recent years has transformed it into a mixed-use space, blending history with modern living, yet the nostalgic image from the late 1950s remains a powerful reminder of its storied past and the industrial era it represents.

Brett Wanamaker shared

John Laughran commented on the above post
I was just there last month!

Bill Helene posted
Spring 1984 view of Battersea Power station, scanned from a negative.
Brett Wanamaker shared

Jamie Ourada commented on Bill's post
Here's a similar view from 30 years later [1994].

John Sturrock via tatler
"As the largest brick building in Europe, it’s a place of history and superlatives: part-1930s, part-1950s."
Apartments for the redevelopment went on sale in 2014 and owners such as Sting have been allowed to move in in 2021. And Apple is making this their London hub where they are moving 1,400 employees from eight sites across the capital to this freshly named 'Apple Campus.'

Dave Trumble commented on his post in response to a question about MW:

Battersea Power Station ; A station: Two 69 MW Metropolitan-Vickers (MV) British Thomson-Houston and one 105 MW Metropolitan-Vickers B station:Two 100 MW and one ...
Nameplate capacity: 1935: 243 MW; 1955: 503 MW; 1975: 488 MW; 1983: 146 MW
Owner(s): London Power Company; (1939–1948); British Electricity Authority; (1948...
Construction cost: £2,141,550 (A station)
Location: Nine Elms, Battersea, Wandsworth, South West London

The fourth owner has successfully implemented plans already made by a previous owner. The reason for using those plans is that they had already been approved.

BBC
The £8bn regeneration project is expected to create 26,000 jobs
"The Malaysian consortium which bought the 39-acre site in south-west London in July for £400m plans to build 3,500 homes, offices, shops and a park. The 1933 grade II* listed building's chimneys will be knocked down and replaced by replicas, the company said....The power station was decommissioned in 1983 and has since been vacant."
A new tube station was built for this development.

Both turbine halls are preserved but the main event space is in the center of the building and can seat 2,000 people. They added six floors of office space to the top of the building. [3:42] If I read a source correctly, this is the office space that Apple is going to use for their Apple Campus.

5:00 video @ 3:41, one of the two turbine halls

apple

A before and after views from NYmag:

1, WATFORD/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

2, F10 Studios Ltd

"Preposterous because the task of converting a huge machine for the postindustrial era means treating it as a precious relic. To satisfy Historic England, the body that oversees “listed” buildings, the developers had to demolish and rebuild four of those graceful but useless smokestacks, match thousands of damaged tiles, and order a million hand-made bricks from the same workshops that furnished the originals. It’s a multibillion-dollar fixer-upper. The largest brick building in Europe, it inspired awe in the kingdom of energy....The power station burned a million tons of coal a year, hewn from the ground under Northumberland and Wales, hauled by train or loaded on barges, and transferred from a jetty on the Thames. When the facility was first proposed, Londoners objected to the idea of spitting so much coal smoke into the air of their city center. Not to worry, the journal Nature chirped in 1932: Recent technological advances had “proved conclusively that the emission of sulphur fumes can be reduced to a negligible quantity.” That was partly true: An innovative process scrubbed the gases of their most noxious ingredients by “washing” them with water — which was then dumped into the Thames. Keeping the lights on amounted to a choice between visibly poisoning the air and invisibly poisoning the river. Eventually, though, coal did both. In 1952, a thick cloud laden with toxins settled over London, and by the time it dissipated five days later, it had killed 12,000 people. Battersea’s B section was still under construction." [NYmag] When I read about a sightseeing elevator being planned for one of the chimneys, I got deja vu. I remember seeing a description of how the six floors of office space was built above an open space. But I could not find any notes on this redevelopment. I hope this psot is not a duplicate.

BuroHappold
The chimneys are 50m above the brickwork of the building and their reconstruction won an award.

After the first phase was done in the 1930s. The other two chimneys were added in the 1950s.

By Andy Dingley (scanner) - Scan from Foreword by E. Royston Pike (1938) Our Generation, London: Waverley Book Company, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11670538
"The construction of the B Station brought the site's generating capacity up to 509 megawatts (MW), making it the third largest generating site in the UK at the time, providing a fifth of London's electricity needs (with the remainder supplied by 28 smaller stations). It was also the most thermally efficient power station in the world when it opened...." [Wikipedia]
The A Station generated electricity using three turbo alternators; two 69 megawatt (MW) and one 105 MW, totalling 243 MW. At the time of its commissioning, the 105 MW generating set was the largest in Europe. The B Station also had three turbo alternators. This consisted of two units which used 16 MW high-pressure units exhausting to a 78 MW and associated with a 6 MW house alternator, giving these units a total rating of 100 MW. The third unit consisted of a 66 MW machine associated with a 6 MW house alternator, giving the unit a rating of 72 MW. Combined, these gave the B station a generating capacity of 260 MW, making the site's generating capacity 503 MW. All of the station's boilers were made by Babcock & Wilcox, fueled by pulverized coal from pulverizes also built by Babcock & Wilcox. There were nine boilers in the A station and six in the B station. The B station's boilers were the largest ever built in the UK at that time. The B station also had the highest thermal efficiency of any power station in the country for the first twelve years of its operation.