Where the winds blow

John Vidal
The Observer,
Sunday October 19 2008

If Britain is to generate a third of its electricity from wind power, many upland areas will be blanketed in wind farms, but people in the lowlands may be shocked to find giant pylons carrying 400,000 volts across favourite areas of the countryside.
Bringing so much wind power from Wales, the Highlands and offshore demands a £5bn-£9bn upgrade and expansion of the high-voltage grid with larger, heavier pylons, up to 220ft high, according to National Grid, the company responsible for distributing electricity.
The existing transmission lines between Scotland, England and Wales will need to be upgraded and new undersea cables could be built down the east and west coasts from Scotland.
In addition, a new transmission line will probably have to be built in mid-Wales, possibly linking with the existing grid near Shrewsbury.
Protests and delays are inevitable. In Scotland, more than 17,000 people have objected to the 137-mile Beauly-Denny pylon route which would see 600 pylons crossing the Highlands.
The last major transmission line built in Britain in the early Nineties took more than 10 years from the planning to construction stages.
Burying the cables underground is 10-25 times more costly than overhead pylons, and not economically possible, says the National Grid.