On Tuesday next week a long delayed independent report into the real costs of undergrounding electricity cables as an alternative to ugly overhead lines and 50 metre high pylons is expected to be published [1]. 

Over the past year the subject of the report, originally to be published a year ago, has become increasingly controversial after National Grid announced nearly 300 miles of new overhead power lines to connect up new energy generation capacity – including offshore wind farms and new nuclear power stations [2]. Some of the proposed lines would cut through England’s finest landscapes like the Mendip Hills and the Dedham Vale.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and others have long contested that National Grid has repeatedly overestimated the costs of undergrounding power lines, sometimes by as much as eight times the real cost [3]. This has led to requests to bury powerlines in our beautiful countryside, including National Parks and AONBs, to be dismissed as too expensive.

Tom Leveridge, Senior Energy Campaigner for CPRE, says: “We hope this report will finally provide some authoritative and independent information on the real costs of burying power lines. Until now, all we’ve had to go on are the costs predicted by the monopoly supplier, National Grid.

“There has been a concern that the delays in publishing this report may have prevented the public from being fully informed about some of the new overhead power lines proposed by National Grid. We must not have any decisions to erect ugly pylons in nationally designated landscapes without robust and independent data.”

History of the power line undergrounding report:

In October 2010 the Department of Energy and Climate Changes (DECC), at the instigation of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) Chairman Sir Michael Pitt, requested National Grid to commission an authoritative and independent report into the cost of undergrounding power cables.

National Grid commissioned international energy consultancy KEMA to produce the report. However, in June 2011 National Grid subsequently removed KEMA from the project after KEMA complained that they could not complete the report with the data available – which included that provided by National Grid [5].

In September 2011 National Grid commissioned international engineering consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) to carry out the research in association with Cable Consulting International (CCI) [6]. A project board to oversee the work was set up including the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), which will provide a quality assurance function, National Grid, which is funding the report, and DECC. The project board is tasked with monitoring and scrutinising the progress of the project.  It is claimed that the report will be independent of both National Grid and DECC.

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Notes to Editors
[1] The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Power lines report to be published in January 2012, 14 December 2011, http://bit.ly/wkwaV2
[2] CPRE map of proposed pylons: http://bit.ly/yySmaT
[3] CPRE, National Grid attempt to bury real costs of undergrounding power cables, 20 June 2011, http://bit.ly/m5ttdx
[4] Institution of Engineering and Technology press release: http://bit.ly/vZM9jc
[5] Institution of Engineering and Technology press release: http://bit.ly/x7ZrbT