Generator

The stator of a large generator sits partially disassembled on the concrete floor of the turbine hall at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories. Its curved copper windings and red-painted metal fins are exposed, and dust has settled into every recess of the machine's core. A red overhead crane cabin shows in the upper background, above the hall floor. To the left, a Danger sign on a white box marks the mid-ground. The machine is opened up rather than running, the core laid bare on the slab where the crane could lift it clear.

The turbine hall housed the turbo-generators that turned brown coal 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. The 1954 revised plan added a 20 MW low-pressure condensing turbine to lift power output. Electricity production at the complex commenced in December 1958, with the State Electricity Commission of Victoria building the station to sever the state's reliance on black coal railed from New South Wales. The last boiler and turbine were taken off on 8 September 2014. Brett photographed the generator on 15 April 2017, in the closed complex before the demolition program began.