Burying electricity power lines ‘cheaper than National Grid’
Regular readers of Hinterland may recall how last October a Danish company beat 250 rivals to win the Royal Institute of British Architects contest to design the next generation of electricity pylons. You can see the winning design here For some readers pylons are a blight on the countryside and the T-design will do little to ameliorate their impact on the landscape. Indeed, when the winner and runners up were announced National Grid said it would be ten times more expensive to lay underground cables and that they would be more difficult and costly to repair. Yet this week an independent report carried out by engineering consultancy Parsons Brinchkerhoff (and quality assured by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and commissioned by government body that Infrastructure Planning Committee), has refuted National Grids figures – suggesting underground cabling to be 4.5-5.7 times more expensive that traditional overhead pylons.
I wonder if this sort of issue will become an important theme for the new Local Nature Partnerships arising from the Natural Environment White Paper. If you dont much about them you should get up to speed – in all the controversy about the National Planning Policy Framework I think their significance has been missed by many people – read about them here.