Concerns are growing about more pylons going up in East Anglia
Fears new pylons will scar Norfolk and Suffolk landscapes
By IAN CLARKE
Monday, January 31, 2011
12:43 PM
Giant overhead power lines could scar some of the “most treasured landscapes” in Norfolk and Suffolk if they are built to take electricity from new offshore windfarms to the national grid, rural campaigners have warned.
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has urged local government minister Eric Pickles to press for power to be sent via underground cables rather than much cheaper pylons.
The CLA claims National Grid (NG) is planning to put a network of “large scale” overhead lines across the countryside linking the offshore windfarms to London.
They claim there could be six so-called “connection points” where the infrastructure has to be upgraded, including Norwich and Lowestoft.
NG revealed it can cost more than 10 times more for underground rather than overhead lines – and warned the bill would have to be passed on to customers.
The company said only “exceptionally constrained” areas could be considered for underground cabling, but said the impact on the countryside was always taken in to account.
The CLA argues that “outdated and outmoded research and development” are being used to calculate the cost and east regional director Nicola Currie said: “We believe NG are looking at a number of places in Norfolk. NG’s costings are based on a historic model of oil-filled cables and large cooling mechanisms which have essentially remained unchanged since the Fifties.”
Mrs Currie said more research had to be done into the alternative high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission.
An NG spokesman said: “When planning to connect a new generator to its network, National Grid considers different methods, including overhead lines, underground cables and subsea cables. We have to manage the costs of these projects responsibly as they will ultimately be paid for by electricity consumers. However, we also need to consider the impact on the local landscape and communities of what we build.”
She insisted cost comparisons were based on modern cables using plastic insulation, known as XLPE cables, not oil-filled cables.
“The costs of triple conductor overhead lines (where there are three wires suspended from each arm of the pylon, a total of 18 wires being carried by each pylon) are £1.8m per kilometre, while an equivalent set of buried underground cables would cost £22m per kilometre. The costs of twin conductor (where there are two wires suspended from each arm of the pylon, a total of 12 wires being carried by each pylon) would be £1.6m per kilometre, while an equivalent set of buried underground cables would cost £18m per kilometre.”
Mr Pickles has been urged by the CLA to confirm that he has asked NG to properly address research and development and to ensure that when he is asked to approve the proposals from the Infrastructure Planning Commission that NG will be asked if alternative offshore routes have been properly assessed using the latest technology.
Mrs Currie said she believed people would be prepared to pay “a bit more” to ensure cables were put underground rather than overhead but added that NG should meet the cost.
NG is currently reviewing its approach to undergrounding and is asking the public, industry, government, environmental organisations and other bodies to have their say. People can find out more by going to www.nationalgridundergrounding.com
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10 comments
Are your for real, McCoy? As power engineers will tell you, wind power generation actually increases our reliance on gas and it will certainly lead to huge increases in generating costs. Don't take my word for it: Professor Sir David King, government chief scientific advisor 2002-2007, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University: "We can’t rely too heavily on wind because it always requires a gas-fired turbine to be able to be switched on to provide alternative energy,"( Green setback for UK as British power supplied by renewable sources falls’, The Guardian. 28 June, 2010). Ofgem: “[…] we consider that the net effect on security of supply of displacing fossil fuel generation with (largely) intermittent renewable sources of generation is at best neutral, but not beneficial. There are considerable management issues that arise in electricity generation […] and no evidence to suggest that the availability of wind is more reliable as a fuel source than imported fossil fuels (which in any case will still be required as a back-up source of generation).” (Ofgem’s response to BERR consultation on the UK Renewable Energy Strategy (Ref 13908: 2008), 23). If you consult National Grid's 'Seven Year statement, 2010' you will see the huge amount of new gas capacity that is planned to be built in parallel to new wind capacity.
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NLys
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Mr McCoy appears to think that the EU must or cannot be challenged! It is time we did on this issue. The reality is that our electricity costs will more than double because of wind 'energy' within the next five years and then double again in tne following five years - thats from official figures. At the same time we will have to build more gas powered stations to take over whenever we have the wrong type of wind. No other type of power station is able to respond to demands in suffiecient time to match the fluctuations in wind power. As there are already concerns about the stability and reliability of those supplies this is just plain daft. With regard to finacial penalties, again we must challenge this sort of nonsense from an organisation that has failed for many years to produce accounts that have met audit requirements. Any company that failed in this way would have been shut down by now!
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andy
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
I readily agree that as consumers we are and continue to subsidise the cost of wind farms. However, this is a commitment made by this and the previous government to provide at least 15% of this country's energy needs by renewable energy by 2020. This target is a EU requirement and is therefore not discretionary. Unless this country chooses to leave the EU before then it has no alternative but to comply with this policy or risk huge financial penalties. My previous post makes no mention of whether or not I approve or disapprove of wind farms but sticks to the point that as wind farms are here the costs of burying electrical cables should not be an additional extra burden to be born by consumers!
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Douglas McCoy
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Profits from subsidies paid for by tax payers and electricity customers for the wind power companies, and blighted landscapes, health problems , devalued land and devalued homes for everyone else. Just so long as we have dinky pretty windturbines the companies operating them seem beyond reproach
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Daisy Roots
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Perhaps we could disguise the pylons as water towers, something we all love and enjoy.
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popeye
Monday, January 31, 2011
Mr McCoy neglects to mention the huge costs to consumers of subsidising offshore wind turbine arrays. For example, the Swedish owners of the Thanet turbine array will 'earn' a total of £1.2 billion in subsidies. That same sum, invested now in a single nuclear power station, could yield a staggering 13 times more electricity, with much greater reliability. We will anyway have to build an equivalent capacity of reliable thermal generating capacity. Far from getting cheaper, offshore is getting more expensive due to rising costs and exchange rates on imported turbines. The North Hoyle project, owned by Germany's RWE, which in 2003 was the first major offshore wind farm commissioned in UK waters cost £1.2m per MW of capacity. Allowing for price inflation and the current weakness of the pound, it would cost at least £2.6mMW if built today. But that figure is significantly less than the £3.25mMW average quoted for most Round 3 projects now planned.
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NLys
Monday, January 31, 2011
Again, Costs are the overiding issue with public health taking the backseat, despite our tax subsidy for these windpower developments. £0 year old , large Swedish studies have concluded that there is a clear link between elec tromagnetic radiation and leukemia cancers in young people and children, mainly, but it was enough for them to burry cables underground, a far lesser hazard. Obviously, our countryside Guardians, all those opposed to 'ugly' windfarms,' can now bark at even more uglier pylons.
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ingo wagenknecht
Monday, January 31, 2011
There is unfortunately always a price to be paid by the environment if mankind wishes to enjoy the benefits of technology. Whilst the aesthetics of the countryside in Norfolk & Suffolk is important so too is the ability for the population to have,and more importantly afford, electricity! The powers that be have decided that offshore wind farms are needed to reduce our nation's reliance on coal and gas supplies from abroad. Given that the current state of the economy is so bad and that escalating fuel costs are so high then it is unthinkable that energy bills should be further burdened with additional costs by financing the burying of electrical cables underground. Unfortunately we as a society can't have it both ways and unless anyone can suggest a realistic alternative to electricity then pylons will be needed.
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Douglas McCoy
Monday, January 31, 2011
I think the figures quoted should be challenged as we all know it is so easy to move a decimal point to a different position. Underground cables must be better in the long run, not just out of sight out of mind, no more wide spread problems due to the weather especialy in winter. Mega money made by the N G over years should have been invested for this, instead of yet again going for the soft touch general public.
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Paul Platten
Monday, January 31, 2011
There is already a fair number of people opposed to these turbines to string cables across the countryside on pylons will increase the hostility greatly.
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John L Norton
Monday, January 31, 2011