The power station at Vemork, near the town of Rjukan in Telemark province, was built in 1907-11, and had a 300 m head of water, carried through a 4 km tunnel and eleven 720 m penstocks. Its main building, 110 m X 22 m, in concrete with a façade of granite, was designed by Olaf Nordhagen and is one of the most dramatically-situated industrial buildings in Europe. Its ten 14,500 hp Pelton turbines were supplied by J M Voith of Heidenheim and A/G Escher Wyss of Zurich.

The power station’s original purpose was to provide power for Birkeland-Eydes furnaces for making nitric oxide as a stage in the manufacture of calcium nitrate. In 1927 the furnaces were replaced by a Haber-Bosch process for which hydrogen was manufactured by electrolysis, which was the reason for a celebrated raid on the plant by British forces during the Second World War.

The hydrogen plant was demolished in 1977, when the power station became a museum of labour, with displays concerning energy and the lives of workers set amongst the original machinery.