Ferndampfwerk Gustav Avellis
THE ABANDONED POWER STATION IN GERMANY
‘Ferndampfwerk Gustav Avellis’ is an abandoned heating plant in Forst. The factory generated thermal energy in the form of steam. It was built in 1922 by the Avellis family, who had a textile factory in the same city. Eventually, the plant closed down after the German reunification.
In 1844 the first steam engine was installed in the Prussian town of Forst. This marked the beginning of the industrial rise to one of the most important textile metropolises of its time. Eventually, at the beginning of the 20th century, Lausitz was the center of the German textile industry. As a result, you could find countless factories that supplied tons of materials for clothes, hats and uniforms, along the Spree and Neiße rivers.
The sons of textile manufacturer Gustav Avellis, Franz and Kurt Avellis, built this power station in 1922. It was built to generate steam for the textile factories. Later in 1933 the city of Forst took over the plant. Contrary to popular belief, the plant did not produce any electricity, but only steam at a temperature of 190 degrees Celsius. The coal was processed in a 3-shift system. The steam was distributed in the city via a widely branched network of pipes. The coal for the steam generation was initially transported by the ‘Schwarzen Jule’, the local industrial railway. After the railway was shut down, it was transported by truck from the coal yard of the power station in Badestrasse.
Shortly after German reunification, the coal boiler was shut down. In 1995 also the gas system of the plant was shut down and the building was abandoned. I visited ‘Ferndampfwerk Gustav Avellis’ in 2019. Follow this link for more abandoned power plants.
