Orlando Power Stations | |
---|---|
Country | South Africa |
Location | Soweto |
Coordinates | 26°15′14″S27°55′30″E / 26.25389°S 27.92500°E |
Status | Decommissioned |
Commission date | 1942 [1] |
Decommission date | 1998 [1] |
Owner(s) | City of Johannesburg |
Thermal power station | |
Primary fuel | Coal [2] |
Power generation | |
Nameplate capacity | 300 Megawatt [2] |
External links | |
Commons | Related media on Commons |
Orlando Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station in Soweto, South Africa. The power station was commissioned at the end of the Second World War and served Johannesburg for over 50 years.
Planning for the construction of Orlando started in 1935, as the electricity demand of Johannesburg was rising faster than what could be met with the existing City Generating Station located in downtown Johannesburg. The location for the station was selected due to its proximity to water supply for coolant and railway lines for the delivery of coal. [1] Construction started in 1939 with Merz & McLellan as consulting engineers, but completion was delayed due to the outbreak of the Second World War. The last phase of construction was completed in 1955. Until 1990 two Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns saddle-tank steam engines (Nos. 7805 Elizabeth an 0-6-0ST and 7398 George an 0-4-0ST were used to move incoming coal trains through a wagon tipper at the power plant. [3]
The station was decommissioned in 1998 after 56 years of service. [1]
In 2006 work was started to transform the site of the power station into an entertainment and business centre. [4]
On 25 June 2014, the decommissioned power plant collapsed, killing 1 and trapping 5 others in the rubble. [5]
The two cooling towers are a prominent landmark in Soweto. They were built in 1951 to supplement the spray pond cooling system as this source of cooling was running at its capacity. [1]
Being supplied by sewage effluent from the Klipspruit Sewage Works, the spray ponds at Orlando were the first in South Africa to make use of this ready supply of coolant liquid. [6]
Both towers are painted, one functioning as an advertising billboard and the other containing the largest mural painting in South Africa. [7] The towers are also used for bungee and BASE jumping from a platform between the top of the two towers as well as a bungee swing into one of the towers. [8] [9]
The tower was used for a Fast Forward on the seventh season of The Amazing Race . The task was for one team (Ray & Deana in particular) to walk across a suspension bridge spanning one of the cooling towers 30 storeys above the ground. [10] In the movie Chappie the power station is the headquarter of the protagonists, the two iconic cooling towers and the main building are decorated with typical Die Antwoord artwork. [11] The towers also appeared on the Dutch television series Wie is de Mol? where contestants in the premiere of the show's thirteenth season bungee jumped off of the towers. [12] The towers were mentioned in the Season 3, Episode 5 episode of Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan. [13]
In the second season of Sky One’s An Idiot Abroad the towers feature as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant attempt to get host Karl Pilkington to bungee jump from a platform suspended between the two to no avail. One of the cameramen however does jump.
Soweto is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships. Formerly a separate municipality, it is now incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality and is one of the suburbs of Johannesburg.
Johannesburg is the most populous city in South Africa with 4,803,262 people, and is classified as a megacity; it is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. It is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa. Johannesburg is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. Most of the major South African companies and banks have their head offices in Johannesburg. The city is located within the mineral-rich Witwatersrand hills, the epicentre of the international-scale mineral, gold and (specifically) diamond trade.
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Orlando Pirates Football Club is a South African professional football club based in Orlando, Soweto that plays in the top-tier system of Football in South Africa known as Betway Premiership. The team plays its home matches at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.
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The Soweto uprising, also known as the Soweto riots, was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa during apartheid that began on the morning of 16 June 1976.
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