White Bay Power Station

The NSW State Heritage-listed White Bay Power Station will soon bring new energy to Sydney and Australia as it opens its doors to the public for the 2024 Biennale of Sydney.

Placemaking NSW has undertaken extensive remediation and conservation works to repurpose the site as an arts, cultural and community hub.

White Bay Power Station will become a focal point for the transformation of the Bays West precinct into a connected and vibrant new area for living, working and recreation.

White Bay is part of the Balmain Peninsula in the Inner West of Sydney and is one of the most recognised landmarks in the precinct and includes surrounding lands to the White Bay foreshore.

White Bay Power Station was constructed between 1912 and 1917 to power the rail network and is now over 100 years old. The power station is exceptionally significant as the only one retaining machinery and equipment from before the 1950s, demonstrating the process of electricity production and it’s use throughout Sydney’s extensive rail network.

The stretch of Country now known as Bays West has been known for millennia as Gari Gurad/Nura (Saltwater Country) and Nattai Gurad/Nura (Freshwater Country). This Country is celebrated for vast expanses of garaban (rock and sandstone) which in some places provides shelter, gibbaragunya (stone/cave shelters), and in other places creates yiningmah (steep cliffs).