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.

almighty1

Morf wrote: »

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

I didn't see it, could you elaborate?

Morf

almighty1 wrote: »

I didn't see it, could you elaborate?

Quotes from the group against it with no lack of hyperbole on their part and not a word about why the project is being planned, the benefits of it etc..

I'm used to their frontpage headlines but only giving one side of the story in their coverage of the story is pretty poor journalism by any standard.

almighty1

Morf wrote: »

Quotes from the group against it with no lack of hyperbole on their part and not a word about why the project is being planned, the benefits of it etc..

Whats benefits will this project serve for Carlow?

DieselPowered

almighty1 wrote: »

Whats benefits will this project serve for Carlow?

Pass through tourist attraction

ptogher14

Anybody that objects to this should automatically be disconnected from the national grid. You want the utilities but don't want any of the downfalls that go with.

road_high

almighty1 wrote: »

Whats benefits will this project serve for Carlow?

I'd imagine being connected to a strong power supply would be an attraction for any industry.

almighty1

ptogher14 wrote: »

Anybody that objects to this should automatically be disconnected from the national grid. You want the utilities but don't want any of the downfalls that go with.

Its backward thinking like the above that make me lose faith in our educational system.

Stick a pylon in your back yard and see how you would like it. There are two ways to skin a cat, it doesn't have to be a pylon.

almighty1

road_high wrote: »

I'd imagine being connected to a strong power supply would be an attraction for any industry.

Read previous. At what cost?

And what about the negatives associated with using pylons specifically

Health hazards
Impact on tourism
Impact on high visual amenity areas
Impact on wildlife

dm1979

I could be wrong, but is this not been done to supply power to UK and France, yes it would be more expensive to run cables under ground and if this power is to service another country and not the people who will suffer from having overhead cables near their homes is that not putting profit before people, they could run the cables underground if they wanted to the money made from the electricity sold abroad would pay for it in the end

lucylu

ptogher14 wrote: »

Anybody that objects to this should automatically be disconnected from the national grid. You want the utilities but don't want any of the downfalls that go with.

This will service the growing Dublin Population...
Why should power generated in Cork,traverse the countryside crossing Waterford, Kilkenny, Carlow, Kildare and Wicklow to keep Dublin in Power?
Dublin has the Irish Sea why don't they put the windfarms off the Dalkey coast... let me see too many big bucks and objections..

fits

ptogher14 wrote: »

Anybody that objects to this should automatically be disconnected from the national grid. You want the utilities but don't want any of the downfalls that go with.

I agree there is a need for good power infrastructure, however there is no need to cover every square inch of this country with infrastructure. Special areas should be recognized and protected.

fits

Morf wrote: »

Does mains electricity serve Carlow? Would industry seeking better electrical infrastructure to locate in Carlow providing jobs serve Carlow?

Then take those two points and apply those to 25 other counties.

You cant just plug into a 400 kV line. It needs to go through sub stations. One substation is in Kilcullen, the other Great Island and any power for Carlow will come from one of these.

Morf

Long story short:

Group A: Not in my back yard, do it "somewhere else" "in a different more expensive and unsuitable way" "not at all"

Group B "It is necessary and has to go somewhere" "there is a group benefit"

Apply to prisons, dumps, shell gas terminals and so on.

fits

Morf wrote: »

If I were to take a good look around these areas of South Carlow and point out all the unsuitable one-off housing that blots the landscape would it be equally sympathetic to these "special" areas to suggest they be flattened and returned to their previous unspoilt state?

Recognising the landscape and cultural value of an area does not mean that the landscape is frozen in position or that there is no development, and it certainly does not mean that one off housing would be prevented.

Are you really equating a 7 metre high house with a 43 metre high pylon in terms of impact on landscape?

fits

Morf wrote: »

Long story short:

Group A: Not in my back yard, do it "somewhere else" "in a different more expensive and unsuitable way" "not at all"

Group B "It is necessary and has to go somewhere" "there is a group benefit"

Apply to prisons, dumps, shell gas terminals and so on.

Group C Yes they are necessary but should be located appropriately. Dumps, prisons, shell gas terminals should not be sited on top of Croagh Patrick, for example....

Morf

fits wrote: »

Recognising the landscape and cultural value of an area does not mean that the landscape is frozen in position or that there is no development, and it certainly does not mean that one off housing would be prevented.

Are you really equating a 7 metre high house with a 43 metre high pylon in terms of impact on landscape?

I deleted this and the other as the post I did leave did covered my opinion relatively well rather than pointing out quite a few misconceptions and fallacies being made out in this thread.

I'm not necessarily a supporter of this scheme but the attitude as I attributed to Group A is all too common and Group B's approach is often countered with fallacies, hyperbole and misdirection.

Your second point is particularly silly. Quite a lot of people would consider houses dotted across an area of scenic value devaluing. Quite a lot of people with off houses in these scenic areas are advocating similar aethetic negatives to electricity pylons. The Nationalist article criticised Carlow Co. Co. planning for a lack of a safeguard to this area when ironically poor long term planning in these areas allow so many of these people to have houses there.

Morf

fits wrote: »

Group C Yes they are necessary but should be located appropriately. Dumps, prisons, shell gas terminals should not be sited on top of Croagh Patrick, for example....

That's covered in group B. Group B (in my experience) don't advocate that these be located in areas to cause most disquiet. There are usually reports and viability studies done and they recommend a certain site/area. Group A disregard said studies/reports and return to the the views which I covered earlier.

These aren't all-encompassing. I'm wildly stereotyping but it seems to cover the situation here and in Ireland that I've seen quite well.

Morf

Why do I find myself dragged into these things?

A) Nationalist has a poor level of journalism.

This project has a benefit. The negative out-weighs the positive if you are near/within sight of a pylon. It still has a benefit for far more people.

C)

D) Profit.

fits

Morf wrote: »

T There are usually reports and viability studies done and they recommend a certain site/area. .

Indeed. Eirgrid put a lot of work into generating a constraints map, or a heat map. This contains all sorts of layers with information about heritage, special areas of conservation, natural parks and high amenity areas.

For the latter, they consult each county's County development plan.

But guess what. There are no high amenity areas in Carlow after this debacle in 2002 http://www.independent.ie/regionals/carlowpeople/news/councillors-green-light-a-county-plan-without-high-amenity-areas-27004091.html

When Eirgrid contacted the council for more information one person in the executive responded unilaterally, (without consulting anyone) and told them to come on up through Carlow no bother. This same council is also being investigated for planning irregularities.

As a result of this, south county carlow, between the Blackstairs and the Barrow (and high amenity area of co. kilkenny) was identified as unconstrained.

Just someone is opposing a major infrastructure project does not mean they do not have a case. And preserving beautiful landscape is also for the public good.

Morf

I didn't say they didn't have a case.

My second post pointed out the bias in the Nationalist coverage. It was suggested by Almighty1 that there wasn't a "benefit" at all from this project for the Nationalist to mention in the story.

Then it proceeded to parochial attitudes.

I'm out anyway. Don't have the will for arguing with zealots.