Energie-Museum Berlin

The Energie-Museum Berlin stands on the site of the former Steglitz power station in the Lankwitz district. Its red-brick buildings line the Teltow Canal and Birkbusch Street, built in the early 20th century to designs by Hans Heinrich Müller. The complex once supplied electricity to the growing city and later housed Germany’s largest battery storage plant. The museum preserves over a century of Berlin’s energy history in four floors of exhibits. Visitors see switchgear, street-lighting lanterns, protective relays and household radios that trace how electricity moved from novelty to necessity. The building itself tells part of the story: a 1980s concrete-and-brick battery hall contrasts with Müller’s early-1900s brick façades trimmed in red and white. Inside, metres of cable runs and towering control panels show how power once flowed. Archive drawers hold technical drawings and photographs of the ‘Electropolis’ that Berlin became by the 1920s. Guided tours explain the 17 MW peak output of the battery plant, built to stabilise West Berlin’s isolated grid. Outside, the protected ensemble of buildings overlooks the canal, linking past infrastructure with present-day Berlin.