The BEAULY-DENNY Powerline is only the First

WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT COMING HERE?

The Beauly to Denny Powerline is not just some squiggle on the map of Scotland. It is critical to the future of wind power from the Highlands and Islands.

We are to become the renewables motorway to the south. Approval for the 137-mile (220km) line, developed by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), will unleash an avalanche of wind farm applications and plans for the new high voltage powerlines and mega-pylons that must be built to service them. The concentration of these lines will converge like the spokes of a wheel at Balblair sub-station creating a steel jungle of mega-pylons and a constantly humming high-voltage aerial wirescape.

To handle all this extra power Balblair sub-station will have to almost double in size. The terms and conditions hammered out for the present Beauly to Denny line will affect the way all future applications are treated. If this first line is not buried what are the chances that the next one or the ones after that will be buried?

For more information on planned powerlines you can view or download a document (sseplans) showing SSE plans for future expansion of the network.

What do you think?