Condenser

Overhead, a 'Danger 11000 volts' sign hangs above the turbine hall floor at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, its warning still legible beneath years of grime. A large green turbine occupies the right side of the frame, its casing heavily corroded, while an orange-painted vertical tank with faded lettering and green piping rises on the left. Rust-coloured pipes cross the space in multiple directions. A small windowed control room sits in the background behind striped floor tape, the only enclosed space in an otherwise open hall of machinery and pipework.

The turbine hall held the plant that turned steam into electricity. The 1950 contract scope was two 30,000-kilowatt back-pressure turbo-generators supplied by Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Export Co. Ltd. of Manchester, with feed-heating plant, and a 1954 revised plan added a 20 MW low-pressure condensing turbine to lift output. Electricity production at the complex commenced in December 1958. The last boiler and turbine were taken off on 8 September 2014, after the final briquette feed the previous August. Brett photographed the condenser on 15 April 2017, in the closed complex before the demolition program began.