Geothermal Power Station (Lots of pics)

[fokker]

These are old photos but I don't think I've posted them before. This is from a few years ago when I worked at a geothermal power plant back home in New Zealand. The plant, Wairakei Geothermal on the outskirts of Taupo, was the second geothermal plant built in the world and recently celebrated it's 50th year in operation. It has been continuously upgraded and changed over the years and what results is a mish-mash of systems that are brilliantly complicated. I had the chance to take a fair few photos when I was there. It was actually at this time that I first joined this forum and started taking photography seriously.

I know this is a lot of photos and I'm not expecting any specific C&C (though I'm not opposed to it), I really just posted this to share. Enjoy!

Pumping Station

Steam venting to atmosphere after a fault caused a station trip

Steam pipes at night

Power transformer (shot with lensbaby)

turbine maintenance

Fan forced cooling towers

Natural draft cooling tower

Flash Plant in the steamfield to seperate water from steam

Binary plant generating 17MW of electricity from hot water fed by flash plants

Intermediate pressure machines, 15MW approx. each machine

River water pumping station

Steam pipes leading towards the station

Steam pipes leading towards the station

'A' Station and 'B' Station by night

Pipe expansion loop - allows the pipes to expand and contract by up to 2 metres during heating and cooling

Self portrait while doing the night shift rounds

High voltage switchyard

 

[SCraig]

Very nice. I love industrial sites, and those are some great shots.