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William


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12th Apr 2008
Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 18.41hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
What are the Winterhighlanders thoughts on the Denny Transmission Line? (for information, I am an Electrical Engineer working with Scottish & Southern Energy, but not on this project.)

[www.scottish-southern.co.uk]


alan


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 20.16hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
As I understand it the existing powerline will need to be replaced regardless of whether capacity is increased as much of it is nearing the end of it's useful life - William do you know if that is the case?

Undergrounding smacks of out of sight and out of mind - yet would cause for more envinromental disturbance than actually building pylons.

How about some joined up thinking - there has been a long running campaign to upgrade the A9 and the main Highland Line railway is also in serious need of improvements. How about undergrounding a third of it below an upgraded A9. A third below a new high-speed highland line, and the last third carried in overtrack ganteries that can also power the trains. smiling smiley
William


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 20.42hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
alan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As I understand it the existing powerline will
> need to be replaced regardless of whether capacity
> is increased as much of it is nearing the end of
> it's useful life - William do you know if that is
> the case?


-------------------------------------------------------
> How about some joined up thinking - there has been
> a long running campaign to upgrade the A9 and the
> main Highland Line railway is also in serious need
> of improvements. How about undergrounding a third
> of it below an upgraded A9. A third below a new
> high-speed highland line, and the last third
> carried in overtrack ganteries that can also power
> the trains.


The replacement of pylons is a constant running job - as they get older they are replaced. Like for like. But the new pylons will be transmitting a much greater voltage, and so are much bigger. They will be seen for miles

Alan, I think that you have made a good point, that the engineering of this new power line could be done alongside other engineering projects.

a) I, personally, don't think it would be a good idea to put the cable under any main roads. A cable fault on a 400KV line is a BIG job to repair. It can take days to complete, the resulting roadworks would be horrendous. However, underground faults are pretty rare on such transmission lines if the initial cable laying and jointing is done properly! (most faults are because of initial bodge-jobs). However, if there is major engineering to be done on the A9, putting the line alongside the road would be a good idea. (and also be convenient for any faults or maintenance)

b) as above

c) I think a 400KV power supply would blow the trains to bits!

For what it is worth, I am for undergrounding the power line. It is a massive job (would involve an excavation about the same size as a dual carriageway), but once it is there, it is out of sight out of mind because the land could be returned to "normal", which for me, isn't such a bad thing. Pylons are such ugly constructions, and they do offend me when marching across our beautiful landscape. The cost of an underground cable is estimated to be 10x that of pylons, but written off over, say 50 years, is not exhorbitant.


If anybody has any strong feelings about the overhead line, I suggest going to the top - Ian Marchant is the top man at SSE, and can be contacted at the Perth office (Inveralmond House, Perth). Give him some hassle, just don't say I sent you!






Edited 1 times. Last edit at 20.42hrs Tue 6 Feb 07 by William.
Hustler


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 22.06hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
I got a great idea... build the wind farms on top of the cities, avoiding the transmission losses involved in shipping the power hundreds of miles from generation to user.
Then we don't need a new line at all.. !!
HTH


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 22.28hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
I understand the pylons will run from Beauly to Denny.- I can't imagine 2 places whose contrasting scenery, more aptly illustrate why landscapes shouldn't be a casualty of urban demands.

Surely there are hills & shores closer to the Central Belt, which could host turbines & grid connections? - The hills I learned to walk in (Campsies) are less than 10mls from Glasgow ..and Denny. - A large area of high ground, on a windy terrain. - But you'd be able to see it from the town below.
alan


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 22.28hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
Small scale energy schemes, including solar roofs would go someway to reducing grid consumption, but large scale energy production to meet the needs of the more populated parts will only be procuded locally if the solution is nuclear. The best source potentially for producing electricity from renewables in the UK is the currents and tides in the Pentland Firth - so this power line is not just about wind farms.
jonners


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 22.45hrs on Tue 6 Feb 07
If global warming brings stormier weather then the cables will need to be underground to prevent them being brought down in strong winds.
William


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 07.34hrs on Wed 7 Feb 07
It takes a lot of wind to bring down a 400KV line. Even the strongest Cairngorm gust wouldn't bother them
dhorsley


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 10.17hrs on Wed 7 Feb 07
The trouble with undergrounding the line is that most of the areas where people are worried abot the pylons being visually damaging are exactly the areas where putting the cable underground would do horrendous environmental dammage. The pylons themselves will do little environmental damage - they are just visually intrusive!
alan


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 11.21hrs on Wed 7 Feb 07
If underground is going to happen the route will have to change - undergrounding over the Corriarick Pass would be unthinkable. It seems to me if this is going to be done underground then it should be tied in with other large infrastructural projects - should at least bring down the overall reinstatement costs (from doing three things seperately) and the biggest cost of laying a cable is opening up the ground - so if such huge ground works are happening anyway it would be good to take advantage of them.

The estimated cost from Hydro Electric of undergrounding the proposed route is £4billion. The TGV Med rail-line in France cost £2.3billion - food for though! Estimated cost uf upgrading the A9 to Motorway Standard £600m.
Andy


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Re: Denny Transmission Line
Date Posted: 12.05hrs on Wed 7 Feb 07
"Surely there are hills & shores closer to the Central Belt,"

lets not forget the biggest wind factory to date is in aryshire and there are loads going to be built down there, ochils soon to get them the lammemuirs already have them, north of dunblane has a load of them now.....when will it stop?...the whole country will soon be industrialised with these turbines , which lets face it are not the only answer. If the line goes ahead(and the one from ullapool across to it) you can expect most of the hills around the A9 to be blanketed in wind farms very soon after. (landowners can't resist the cash ) Enough with these large profit making wind farms, small scale and offshore are fine but i suppose that won't meet the needs of the SE of the UK.
As a side issue we'll need the same capacity in reserve from other power sources for the days when the wind doesn't blow.
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