Meters

A bank of meters at Shimizusawa Thermal Power Plant sits across the front of one of the operator panels, each meter a round dial in a brass-bezelled escutcheon. The dials carry the Japanese unit-label conventions of the period: amperes, voltage, kilowatts, frequency, all hand-painted on small plates above each meter. The needles sit at their last positions, some at zero, some caught mid-scale. The brass has darkened with patina. The panel face behind the meters is matte-finished steel, painted in the standard industrial green of the plant. Cabling enters the back of the panel from the equipment room behind.

Meters of this kind were the operator's continuous feed of the plant's working conditions across the operating shifts. Shimizusawa's panels were installed at the 1926 build and remained in service for the full operational life of the station until operations ceased in 1990. After closure the meters were de-energised; the needles fell to whatever rest position the springs and gravity left them. The brass bezels, the dials, and the hand-painted labels stayed in place. Most of the more valuable instrumentation in the building has been removed for scrap or sale; the embedded panel-mounted meters generally remained.