Permitting is a crunch issue for grid development
People attending the GRIDS 2010 conference may largely agree on the need for an extended European power grid, but there is far less consensus amongst the public and the issue must be addressed, said participants at a panel discussion this morning.
“Transmission system operators know exactly where the next grid lines are to go, but the permitting is a problem”, said Konstantin Staschus, Secretary General of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E).
“We need to explain to people that grid development is making life better for them, and not worse just because they see an electricity pylon on the horizon”, he said.
Christian Kjaer, CEO of EWEA, agreed. “The public needs to be engaged”, he said. “Work on the ground is crucial. We must overcome the ‘NIMBY’ elements and get to work”.
When it comes to realising a “2020 vision” for grid development, work needs to begin straight away, participants also said. Gunnar Lundberg, Markets Chairman at EURELECTRIC, stressed that “we need to start practical work tomorrow.” He added that “Ten years is very short in terms of transmission activity”.
Demanding that the very technology that is used to save the environment is not the same technology that spoils it does not make people NIMBYs. Your industry’s plans destroy the possibility that others might capitalise on the amenity value and beauty of the landscape within huge swathes of countryside. You now have economically viable technologies to put necessary on-land grid underground and to carry the major burden of transmission undersea around the UK. If you truly believe that you can undermine the opposition that exists to your plans to despoil the landscape with a tidal wave of new pylons by calling them nimbys, then you will surely discover that there are tens of thousands of people within the UK who will oppose your plans for more 1930′s technology with a well argued technical and economic case for your embracing 21st century technology, to save the landscape from your scaremongering efforts to adhere to the transmission technology you know and are comfortable with, but which the public know to be an unacceptable and, with todays technology, unnecessary detriment to the UK landscape.
As I pointed out at the beginning of this comment, your industry has no right to despoil the landscape with the very technology you claim yourselves to be saving it with. There is a better way.