Hydra
The Sauda II power plant in the Rogaland County of Norway is no ordinary hydroelectric power plant.
Sitting next to the now abandoned Art Deco relic site of the former Saudefaldene power plant is a mysterious roller door attached to the side of a mountain range that seems both out of place and inauspicious. Once the door opens you are presented with a dimly lit straight underground road that leads 1 mile beneath the mountain.
In 2016-17, I was granted unprecedented access to start a project to explore and document this ground-breaking, weird and wonderful power station. Dark winding tunnels seem to go for miles and miles in each direction that periscope from a 3 storey concrete block in the centre that houses the actual facility.
The lab-like white rooms within the concrete block are a mass of machines, computers, wires and pipes that seem to lead through walls and back out to the dark tunnels and disappear into the distance. The generator rooms are huge and painfully loud. This whole facility is unmanned, every aspect is controlled and monitored by an office in the nearby town of Sauda. Knowing that no one else is with me in such an expanse of tunnels and labs is a very odd feeling indeed.
One room within the block, unofficially nicknamed the Cancer Room and painted a playful shade of pink, is where the electricity is stored within pylons. You feel the energy radiating through your body once in there. Automatically a nervous feeling strikes you like a weight on your chest and I have little wonder as to why the room has this rather unfortunate moniker. I was strictly told that I can only spend 20 minutes in this room.
Spending a week at a time navigating the tunnels underground somehow doesn't seem long enough. Every step uncovers the next scene of mystery and intrigue.
