Report - Kraftwerk V, Germany - May 2015

[Exploring with Andy]

Kraftwerk V is an abandoned power plant in Germany. The power plant was seriously huge – once home to 12 turbines in a single hall. The turbines have since been removed, but the turbine hall remains, complete with two small control rooms.

A further, much larger control room remains in perfect condition. The control room appears to have been preserved just how it would have been when the plant closed. A vast array of traditional control panels surround the room, along with a few stations in the centre. Amazingly we also discovered the lights still work.

Visited with SpiderMonkey as always, along with Val from Val's Darkroom and Robin Decay.

1. Huge turbine hall

2. Cool floor!

3. Dismantled turbine

4. Small control room

5. Valves

6. More valves

7. My brother had a trailer like this for his toy tractor when we were kids. It was cool.

8. Derpy control room hidden away in the boiler house

9. Coal conveyors

10. Boiler house

11. Top of the boiler house

12. The ornamental flowers look a bit like electric motors.

13. Spacious living room

14. Two steering wheels. One for the pilot and one for the co-pilot.

Are you ready for the best bit....

15. Woah! How did that happen!

16. Plush purple seats and bright red blinds. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen eat your heart out.

17. Bat phones.

18. Fisheye is needed to fir this lot in!

19. Yummy panels.​

 

[Camera Shy]

Worth mentioning this is permission maybe ?

 

[Exploring with Andy]

Worth mentioning this is permission maybe ?

It wasn't!

 

[Camera Shy]

Fair enough, I thought this was a museum/permission

 

[Exploring with Andy]

Fair enough, I thought this was a museum/permission

I understand it had been used as a museum in the past, which is probably why the control room was well preserved. However it's not used for that any more and we just snook in as usual.

 

[host]

Nice work, i did get the chance to look round here a few years ago ( permission ) while working in the area..it really is massive. fantastic photography mate.

 

[captainweird]

Control
Panel
Porn.
'Scuse, me, I'm drooling

Phil

 

[zombizza]

Amazing
I wonder why so many control panels are that colour?

 

[captainweird]

I can answer that, I used to build the bloody things! You can't have bright colours, as any warning lights won't show up and you get reflections, leading to operators with knackered eyes. We used to use that green colour, a sort of pale blue, grey crackle finish and that was it.

Phil

 

[jST]

Class, what were the black and white photos above the control panels of?

 

[Exploring with Andy]

Class, what were the black and white photos above the control panels of?

They were old photos from around the power plant - unfortunately I didn't get any close-ups of them. They were just stuck on, not framed or anything so I assume they were put up after the place's museum days, maybe for an open day or something.

 

[Exploring with Andy]

I can answer that, I used to build the bloody things! You can't have bright colours, as any warning lights won't show up and you get reflections, leading to operators with knackered eyes. We used to use that green colour, a sort of pale blue, grey crackle finish and that was it.

Wow that's pretty interesting, thanks for the info.

 

[htiawe]

Love the shots of the control room, nice one!

 

[tarkovsky]

That’s just ridiculously nice.