Hidroelectric Power Plant

Hydroelectric power plant „Under the town“ on the Djetinja river in Uzice is the first power plant in Serbia and among the first ones in Europe based on Tesla’s poly-phase current principles. It started to work in 1900, four years after the power plant on Niagara falls, to which these principles were applied for the first time. In 1899, King Aleksandar I Obrenovic set the foundation stone using brass hammer made specially for that occasion, which is kept in The National Museum of Uzice. The power plant was constructed for the neccessity of textile factory and town streets lightening, while the surplus of electric power was sold to citizens for their households.

The initiator of power plant construction was the professor and physicist Đorđe Stanojevic, and the engineer Acim Stevovic made a project that included power plant building, 5.7 metres high dam and 775.9 metres long chasm. Company Simens & Halske provided the equipment. The name of this company was written on the instrument chest in Cyrillic alphabet. The producer of turbines  was the company named Danubius-Maschinen Hartmann. The equipment was transported to Kragujevac by train, then  for transport to Uzice a specially constructed ox cart was used. Capacity of the electric power production was doubled in 1903/04 after the purchase of one more generator and one turbine. During the First and the Second World War the invader ran the power plant. In 1973 during the construction of the railway line Belgrade-Bar, water chasm was covered up and the power plant stopped working. On the date of July 14, 1977 the power plant building and its immediate surroundings were declared as  cultural heritage of  great significance. It was reconstructed in 1990 and 2000 and it is still in function at present. Since 2009 it has been available to visitors.