The Central Electric Power Station (CES) is the only surviving citywide electric power station in Ukraine. Its location in the Podil district, on the bank of the Dnipro River, was determined by the need for a large supply of water for technical purposes.

The monument’s design was created by architects G. Scheel and F. Scheffel.

The complex of the Central Electric Power Station includes:

• Main Building, 1898–1900;

• Distribution Substation, 1910–1919, 1933–1936;

• Gatehouse, 1898–1900;

• Riverside Water Pumping Station, 1909–1910, reconstructed in 1924;

• Turbogenerator by Brown, Boveri & Co., 1910;

• Bridge Crane for installing technological equipment, 1890, reconstructed in 1927 and 1971.

It was a power plant of a new type, generating three-phase alternating current of high voltage (2200 volts), which was reduced on transformers to 190/110 volts.