Do giant pylon plans show Wales being treated as a second class country?
Martin Shipton
A leading environmentalist has challenged National Grid to explain why it is planning to bring electricity to Wales via a subsea cable while proposing to build a gigantic network of pylons across Wales to service the electricity needs of south east England.
Dr Jonathan Dean of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales stated in a Facebook post: “National Grid is starting to consult the public about the Western Link 2 project. This is a joint venture with Scottish Power to connect the Machair wind farm off Scotland, and other onshore wind farms in Scotland, to the transmission grid in north Wales
“The plan is to bring the electricity by subsea cable to Aberdesach in Gwynedd, then have a buried cable past Caernarfon to Pentir near Bangor where there will be a large AC/DC converter station next to the existing substation (probably about the size of a large supermarket, but much higher)
“It could also be used to supply power from the eight new nuclear reactors at Wylfa to Scotland, when those eventually get built, as the Scottish Government will not allow nuclear power stations
“As north Wales already has a lot of offshore wind, and more is already approved, the next piece of the grid jigsaw is getting the electricity out of north Wales to where it is actually needed
“National Grid has a separate project to connect the grid in north Wales to that in the south via an entirely new line of 50 m high, 400,000 volt pylons through the middle of Wales. This was signed off by Ofgem in 2022 but despite working on the project for four years they are still refusing to say where they plan to build it. No doubt they will get the UK Government fully bought into their plans before they have the decency to discuss it with any members of the public!
“However, they can’t wait too long. With the Western Link 2 project now getting underway, they will have to show their hand pretty soon as pylon projects take far longer to get planning consent for – the public tend to get far more worked up about pylons than subsea cables, and a route through the middle of Wales where there are currently no pylons of any size will attract huge interest
“Once the electricity gets to the grid in south Wales there are existing lines to take it to south east England where the main electricity demand is
“That is a huge amount of new infrastructure planned for the entirety of Wales, from north to south, to satisfy the growing demand for electricity
“A pretty obvious question is: why isn’t the north south link also being put subsea rather than through the middle of Wales?”
Options
We asked National Grid to respond to Dr Dean’s comments. A spokesperson said: “Where the requirement for a new electricity network within Wales and England has been identified by the National Energy System Operator, National Grid has a responsibility to assess a range of options to find the best solution for the network.
“Consultation with local communities and key stakeholders plays a crucial part in the development of our proposals. We will be seeking feedback on our emerging proposals as soon as they are available to help develop a proposal that minimises environmental impact and maximises local socio-economic benefit.”
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In other words ‘up yours Welsh plebs’ you will take whatever you are given…
No real surprise here. Under the system of government that we have its England forst, last and always. We see it every day with Starmer with everything he says and does. We need INDY ASAP . And among other things, have an energy policy to suit our needs and be able to charge a reasonable rate for any energy we sell
Of course we are and always have been.Let these companies apply to put huge pylons up in the Cotswolds and see what the reaction would be then.
Giant pylons? Of course they are big, big for a reason. They are normal pylons.
To be fair the 400KV pylons are far, far larger than the 132KV pylons. They are not all created equal.
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There has been since 2019 a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) sub-sea cable from Hunstanton, Scotland to Connahs Quay. This is to bypass the bottleneck on the Scottish/English land border. The undersea cable plans to Pentir are part of these plans and tie in with the burying of the existing cable on the Dwyryd Estuary near Penrhyndeudraeth. I expect that the plans include re-conducting (rewiring) the existing lines to boost capacity without changing the appearance of those existing pylons. All those pylons converge, again on Connahs Quay and there will be a capacity constraint on those line of 5.5GW. ie… Read more »
No evidence the latter will happen. Have a look on national grid plans. Though ironically nationalists should support this, it will support electricity generation in Wales being kept here. In the north we export to England. In the south, we are largely dependent on electricity coming back from England.
Have a look at this National Grid discussion document from National Grid and in particular the map on page 21. A transmission circuit from North to South Wales is planned, probably from 2030 onwards to support projected demand by 2050. The route is not determined as yet but there are only a few alternatives and so far they are suggesting a overland route either along the coast or down the Vale of Clwyd. We need to be pressing for a HVDC route under Cardigan Bay to Pembroke.
https://riiot3.nationalgrid.com/document/30136/download
Why don’t they just bring the undersea cable down to the south?
HVDC cables like you mention are good at point to point movement of electricity -because the cost of converting. If we build multiple wind farms, like we plan, it’ll be difficult to connect. Plus undersea cables are incredibly expensive
Once again, successive Conservative and Labour governments at Whitehall ignore or bypass the Welsh Government and devolution, disregarding the people of Wales’ concerns while exploiting the Welsh countryside to keep England green, pleasant, and free of pylons.
Not entirely, see the attached document and in particular page 11
https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-07/future-energy-grids-for-wales-insights-report.pdf
Wales currently produces only about a tenth of the renewable energy we will need to achieve net zero, excluding net energy trade.
Great point!
Wales already generates renewable electricity equivalent to around 53–59% of its annual electricity consumption, based on Welsh Government 2023/24 figures — and that percentage is likely even higher now. At the same time, electricity is being exported daily from Pembrokeshire to Ireland through the Greenlink interconnector. Power from South Wales wind farms is carried via major transmission infrastructure (big pylons) and the undersea cable to Wexford, with live flow data publicly available online. Yet communities along proposed pylon routes — and sensitive peatland carbon stores in the Cambrian Mountains — are facing the prospect of major industrial development, including hundreds… Read more »
The use of more electricity and eliminating as much fossil fuel use makes a lot of sense from an efficiency, health and pollution point of view.
However, the point about trashing peatland is a serious issue, although the bio-diversity of the Cambrian Mountains is fairly appalling. The long term plan for a 400kv transmission circuit north to south through Wales is a serious threat, in addition to the 132KV lines already being planned by Bute Energy and all currently planned by private companies.
Don’t confuse electricity and energy. Yes, Wales generates about half its electricity consumption from renewables but electricity accounts for only a fifth of total energy use. Hence, achieving net zero could require producing ten times as much electricity as today.
Even with substantial improvements in energy efficiency we would still need to expand our renewable generation several times. Small scale generation is desirable but large scale infrastructure is unavoidable.
It also depends on how you measure ‘electricity demand’. According to some we only produce 28% of electricity to meet our needs. As most of that 58% is at night or when windy when we export. Matching generation to demand, we only get 28%. And as you point our, electricity is only half the problem.
Its not news we have always been treated as a second class country and will in the future unless Welsh people smell the coffee and get out of the disunited Kingdom its only run to benefit England
It’s called low carbon electricity. Actually rental is paid for the pylons. We should ensure that a fraction should go to the communities.
Service as usual, it seems.
The sooner that London’s imperialist label of “England and Wales” is removed from everything they deal with, the better we’ll all be in Cymru.
Concerning the North-South line of pylons, this CPRW article makes interesting reading and illuminates, in the form of Welsh government decisions, one of the knock-on effects of being prevented from administrating the Welsh part of the Crown Estate.
https://cprw.org.uk/connecting-the-electricity-transmission-systems-of-north-and-south-wales/
Absolutely correct and the following documents support that the CPRW article has a basis in fact
https://riiot3.nationalgrid.com/document/30136/download
map on page 21
https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-07/future-energy-grids-for-wales-insights-report.pdf
page 11