Porjus

Porjus ( Sami: Barjas ) is a village ( Tätort ) in the Swedish municipality of Jokkmokk, which belongs to the province of Norrbotten County. Porjus arose in connection with the construction of the hydroelectric power plant located here in the years 1910 until 1915. Between 1971 and 1982 a new power plant was built. This is now the third largest hydropower plant in the company Vattenfall with an annual output of 1,233 GWh.

The old power station is now a museum and houses, among other things a training unit and a research unit. The visit to the museum is possible in the summer months without an appointment and there are also guided tours instead. In the other months, a registration is required. A building of the old power station in 1986 declared a historical monument and thus represents one of the first Swedish monuments that document the industrialization of the early 20th century.

The original purpose of the hydropower plant was the electrification of the iron ore railway from Luleå to Narvik. However Porjus is a railway station on the Inland Railway. As the Swedish government hoped a greater industrialization of the northern parts of the country at the same time, the power plant was greater configured as required.

The actual resort should exist only for the time of power plant construction but he continued to exist and had temporarily almost 3,000 inhabitants. A special feature of Porjus is that the place despite its small size has its own telephone area code ( 0973 ).