Forth Banks Power Station

Forth Banks Power Station was a coal-fired power station in North East England. It was situated in the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne on Forth Banks, a street to the rear of Newcastle Central station. Put up in a disused factory building in 1890 by the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (DisCo), it is notable as the first power station in the world to use turbo alternators, as well as being one of the first municipal power stations in the United Kingdom. In its seventeen-year operating history, the station used various pieces of generating equipment and so had various generating capacities. It ceased to be used following an expansion of the nearby Close Power Station in 1907.

The Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (DisCo) was established by Sir Charles Algernon Parsons and registered as a company on 14 January 1889. While anticipating the obtainment of the necessary powers from the Board of Trade, which they were granted without opposition in 1891, the company set about acquiring their first site in Newcastle's Forth Banks area, as well as ordering machinery and obtaining a sufficient number of customers to justify commencement. In November 1889, the company purchased buildings from Hawthorn Leslie and Company which had formed part of their Forth Banks works, used by their marine engine department prior to moving to new works at St. Peter's. In January 1890, the Forth Banks Power Station was commissioned. In opening the station, DisCo became the first electric company to ever trust completely in steam turbines. This was the first time steam turbine and turbo alternator machinery of any kind had been employed in a power station, and the units DisCo ordered for the station were the largest to have ever been built at that time, as well as the first to have been built for a particular purpose.

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