R.L Hearn Generation Station
The R.L Hearn power station is know to everybody in the city either affiliated with power generation, exploring or the movie industry which still uses the site today for mammoth sets. Completed in 1951 and fully in-service by 1953, the station was first set up to be coal fired. In the 1950’s there was already talk of shutting the station down. In 1961 the plant reached full capacity at 1200 MW and the boilers burned through an astonishing 440 tons of coal per hour ! How is that for inefficient!
From the historical photos you can see the station originally had four chimneys, one for each of the boilers, then when 4 additional 200 MW units were installed, there were four more chimneys added. The last three were taller then the first five, but then they were torn down and replaced with electrostatic preciptators. The smokestack everyone now knows was completed in 1971 and was the tallest one in the world until that status was taken by the CN Tower in 1976. At the same time in 1971 the plant was also
converted to burn natural gas however the station became mothballed in the early 1980’s with the shutting down of units 1-5 in 1978-79. The generators in the plant was utilized as synchronous condensers until 1995 with a skeleton staff of 10 workers. The site was a location of interest for a movie production company called Studios of America but the plans to convert the 300,000 sq ft power station into a production studio called Great Lakes studios was abandoned in 2006.
The location did have quite a few accidents onsite with workers while operational and explorers over the years as the location seems to deteriorate a bit more each year. Most recently it became the subject of public attention when an explorer had an accident on site died later on from his injuries. There are no immediate plans for the site itself, however it remains unknown how long the station will sit completely empty next to the Portlands Energy Centre which is located right next door as its been totally gutted and looks nothing like the images seen here from 3-4 years ago.
Probably the best collection of Pre-2004 images from Hearn power station, before we went.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 9:25 am and is filed under Power Generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
admin May 28th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Jt.. glad you liked it. It’s definitely one of the items on the UE tour checklist. No one has the vision that you do so… I’m rooting for ya!
;- )
thx for stopping by and the words. Jx