Major electricity pylon route planned for Carlow

almighty1

You may or may not be aware that Eirgrid are planning running a 56m high electricity pylon route through Carlow.

You all know of the potential impact to countryside, health, value of house etc etc

There will be a protest at the Council Offices next Monday at 1PM
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Our-Heartland/210190362485657

More information here
http://www.eirgridprojects.com/projects/gridlink/overview/

Morf

What is the alternative?

almighty1

Morf wrote: »

What is the alternative?

Underwater. It running from Kilcullen- Waterford - Cork. Not infeasible.

Underground surely must be a possibility also.

road_high

almighty1 wrote: »

Underwater. It running from Kilcullen- Waterford - Cork. Not infeasible.

Underground surely must be a possibility also.

Hugely disruptive and expensive I would think. And a nightmare for maintenance and repairs.

DieselPowered

Meath Pylon Pressure already on Boards.
Worth looking at what they have already fought for over the last few years.

almighty1

road_high wrote: »

Hugely disruptive and expensive I would think. And a nightmare for maintenance and repairs.

Expensive yes but savings in the long term (see below). Disruptive ..... perhaps but certainly people would gladly take the disruption if it meant not looking out at a gigantic ugly pylon in their back garden.

Maintenance and repairs are much more frequent on overground cables due to weathering. And obviously less maintenance and repairs means better savings in the long term.

road_high

almighty1 wrote: »

Expensive yes but savings in the long term (see below). Disruptive ..... perhaps but certainly people would gladly take the disruption if it meant not looking out at a gigantic ugly pylon in their back garden.

Maintenance and repairs are much more frequent on overground cables due to weathering. And obviously less maintenance and repairs means better savings in the long term.

So why are they looking at over-ground? I am assuming the cost is multiples of what overground costs.

almighty1

road_high wrote: »

So why are they looking at over-ground? I am assuming the cost is multiples of what overground costs.

Perhaps they don't have the money to pay outright for it and are willing to take the hit over a longer term. Time involved may be an issue also. I'm presuming overground is quicker.

Either way they are a blight on our landscape. Destroying the country with horrible poles, wires and pylons. Do you agree?

lucylu

My OH went to an information day last week

There are multiple routes that will cross over Carlow County.
The current routes are 1KM wide where they will determine the best location for the masts
They will not make a decision on the exact route it will cross until Next March after that they will then go through the process of determining the exact route.

They say it is acceptable for the Overwire cable to be at minimum 17 meters from your house, but Eirgrid hope to put at least them 50 meters away.

Masts will be 35 meters high. There will be a hum from them.

almighty1

Wonderful looking yokes aren't they?
They surely won't spoil the countryside and undoubtedly will bolster the tourism sector.

loremolis

If they underground the lines they don't need planning permission.

slimjimmc

loremolis wrote: »

If they underground the lines they don't need planning permission.

You're mistaken.

Underground infrastructure does require planning permission as Eirgrid's own development plan for 2008-2012 points out in relation to an underground and under-sea cable at Rush..

The planning application seeks approval for a converter station at Woodland, underground HVDC cable to the transition joint at Rush, Co. Dublin and a subsea HVDC cable beneath the Irish seabed to the 12 nautical mile limit .

Also here.

So if PP was required for Rush what makes you think it's not required elsewhere?

gctest50

almighty1 wrote: »

Wonderful looking yokes aren't they?
They surely won't spoil the countryside and undoubtedly will bolster the tourism sector.

I suppose they are the cheapest/most durable ?

SpaceTime

Underground cabling's really only done for short runs. There's no way they could underground that kind of length of lines. The disruption is enormous too. It involves digging big trenches these aren't just like local lines running down to serve your house at 230V.

SpaceTime

http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/pool/hq/power-transmission/gas-insulated-transmission-lines/gil05.jpg

congo_90

almighty1 wrote: »

Either way they are a blight on our landscape. Destroying the country with horrible poles, wires and pylons. Do you agree?

They're providing the electricity to you right now!?
Pylons are cheaper and faster to erect, run cable through and easier to maintain.
In comparison to underground.
Which requires (due to current) deep trenches and repairs to ground. This is slow and costly.

almighty1

congo_90 wrote: »

They're providing the electricity to you right now!?
Pylons are cheaper and faster to erect, run cable through and easier to maintain.
In comparison to underground.
Which requires (due to current) deep trenches and repairs to ground. This is slow and costly.

I agree but its a trade off. You haven't answered my question so I don't know why you quoted it.

kalmanon2

plus if you dig trenches for lines of that length, for that size of cable there are implications for the soil quality etc, not to mention the cables themselves can get eroded by minerals in the soil - if there is a fault in the line, you have to dig everything back up until you find the affected area. Pylons are used because in terms of construction AND maintenance, they are cheaper over the lifetime. and I admit that I am nervous of the health implications either way... but also I am not as well informed as I could be - a lot of the information I have seen is very badly defined...

almighty1

kalmanon2 wrote: »

plus if you dig trenches for lines of that length, for that size of cable there are implications for the soil quality etc, not to mention the cables themselves can get eroded by minerals in the soil - if there is a fault in the line, you have to dig everything back up until you find the affected area. Pylons are used because in terms of construction AND maintenance, they are cheaper over the lifetime. and I admit that I am nervous of the health implications either way... but also I am not as well informed as I could be - a lot of the information I have seen is very badly defined...

Soil erosion on underground cables? You do realise that all underground cabling runs through piping. And I'm not just talking about power cables.

As for the maintenance it may not be necessary to dig to diagnose a fault. Some of the pipeworks are big enough to walk through with access via manholes. Its also widely accepted that faults on underground cabling are less frequent than overhead cabling.

loremolis

Overground or underground doesn't really matter.

Eirgrid has no right to do either.

SpaceTime

almighty1 wrote: »

Soil erosion on underground cables? You do realise that all underground cabling runs through piping. And I'm not just talking about power cables.

As for the maintenance it may not be necessary to dig to diagnose a fault. Some of the pipeworks are big enough to walk through with access via manholes. Its also widely accepted that faults on underground cabling are less frequent than overhead cabling.

You realise that putting in those underground walk-through ducts is as big a job as laying a major road or railway ?

It's not without its drawbacks!

Not running new power infrastructure just means that all major development will be restricted to Cork, Dublin and the Shannon/Limerick area and abandoning any notions of wind power / off shore farms on the west etc etc.

If that's a choice we want to make, we could do away with the need for more power line routes.

The only technology that might be useful is HVDC underground as it reduces the size of the cables quite a bit. The downside is that the technology is proprietary from ABB and it's very expensive. We've done it for a the Ireland - Britain interconnection.

DieselPowered

SpaceTime wrote: »

You realise that putting in those underground walk-through ducts is as big a job as laying a major road or railway ?
It's not without its drawbacks!The downside is that the technology is very expensive. We've done it for a the Ireland - Britain interconnection.

Its only 'expensive' from an installation point of view. If you look at the Meath pylon argument, it was going to cost X euro to install above ground and Y euro below ground (Where Y was we'll say 3 times the cost of X [I don't know exactly]), but with all the legal action, costs, time delay, overrun with the overhead argument etc, its now cost well over the original cost of Y (to go underground).

lets say they just decide here to go underground from the start and save all of the excess (legal, time etc) from the outset, would this now not be be a cheaper option?

The technology is there to put it underground, again the 'its cheaper to put them overground' always seems to win out initially.

slimjimmc

loremolis wrote: »

Overground or underground doesn't really matter.

Eirgrid has no right to do either.

Correct, until they:

acquire land either by agreement or compulsory purchase order. For CPOs they need permission from the Commission for Electrical Regulation

and

planning permission to install the transmission system.

AFAIK once they have that they do have the right.

loremolis

slimjimmc wrote: »

Correct, until they:

acquire land either by agreement or compulsory purchase order. For CPOs they need permission from the Commission for Electrical Regulation

and

planning permission to install the transmission system.

AFAIK once they have that they do have the right.

They don't acquire by agreement very often and they've only sought CER approval once which was in relation to their interconnector.

SpaceTime

DieselPowered wrote: »

Its only 'exepnsive' from an installation point of view. If you look at the Meath pylon argument, it was going to cost X euro to install above ground and Y euro below ground (Where Y was we'll say 3 times the cost of X [I don't know exactly]), but with all the legal action, costs, time delay, overrun with the overhead argument etc, its now cost well over the original cost of Y (to go underground).

lets say they just decide here to go underground from the start and save all of the excess (legal, time etc) from the outset, would this now not be be a cheaper option?

The technology is there to put it underground, again the 'its cheaper to put them overground' always seems to win out initially.

One of the reasons electricity in Ireland is so expensive!

DieselPowered

SpaceTime wrote: »

One of the reasons electricity in Ireland is so expensive!

Sometimes in life you have to spend money to save money.
when these companies understand that, the stress of projects like this
on the rest of us will be reduced and let electricity companies do what they do best - growing for future demand, not seriously p1s*ing off the general public who learn to hate them.

Underground Cables should not even be a discussion, it should be normal.

SpaceTime

They are normally only done on short runs across areas of particularly scenic importance though.

I'm not aware if any utility company anywhere in the world that runs full lines underground across a whole route.

There is a balance to be struck between overhead and underground but it's just not practical to put everything underground.

3X cost would sound like a very serious under estimate given what's involved.

almighty1

SpaceTime wrote: »

You realise that putting in those underground walk-through ducts is as big a job as laying a major road or railway ?

Like the motorway that was recently done between Newbridge and Waterford? You would think that pipework to the side of the motorway for telecommunications and electricity routing would have been a good idea?

Eirgrid could then rent out available space in these pipeworks to telecommunication companies thus speeding up the National Broadband Scheme. The lack of forethought in the country is unbelievable.

SpaceTime

That's already done

http://www.nra.ie/network-monitoring-and-management/national-traffic-control-centre/submission-of-consent-applications/Indicative-Location-of-Ducting.pdf

They're not remotely to the scale needed for HV power lines though.

You're talking the difference between something the size of a sewer pipe and something the size of a metro rail tunnel.

Article from the UK National Grid outlining what's involved.
http://www.landsnet.is/uploads/1068.pdf

It costs 12 to 17 times more per km to do underground cabling. That's the simple reality of it.

I don't know where the figure of 3X the cost was coming from because it's no where near reality for major HV lines. It might be for small low/medium voltage setups for wind farms, but not on this kind of scale.

It's relatively cheap to do urban underground distribution cabling as the cables involved are much smaller, the heat dissipation issues are much less etc

You can do similarly cheap runs from wind farms as the total power output's quite low. So, the cabling can and should go underground.

However, if you're talking about huge national grid lines, they're not easily put underground at reasonable cost. The best you can achieve is small underground sections to avoid areas of particular natural beauty.

You can also design pylons that are much lower visual impact than the big ugly traditional ones that tended to have been used here by default.

The route should also avoid exposed areas where the lines are going to be extra visible.

Also, underground cables can have faults, you can have cable fires and overheating and all of that. They're not just like your average telecommunications cable run.

I mean a major fibre route is tiny in comparison, produces no heat, has no requirements to deal with EM, is not even conductive and is highly unlikely to break. You just need a simple concrete tube to carry it.

Morf

Nice to see the Nationalist covered the story in a objective way.

DieselPowered

SpaceTime wrote: »

It costs 12 to 17 times more per km to do underground cabling. That's the simple reality of it.

I don't know where the figure of 3X the cost was coming from because it's no where near reality for major HV lines. It might be for small low/medium voltage setups for wind farms, but not on this kind of scale.

Interesting document and information, there is also another way to run the cables underground - encase them in oil to absorb the heat - this is the method that was suggested for Ireland, not sure how the pricing compares to the walk through tunnels which even look expensive.