Power struggle over new lines

People opposed to Transpower's pylon plans need to face facts, says the man in charge of the project.

Auckland needs more electricity and Transpower's proposal to build a 400kV line through the Waikato with almost double the existing capacity can deliver it.

"We know that nobody wants it," says the company's project manager, Mike Tucker. "But at the end of the day it's what we have to do to keep the lights on. It's as simple as that. We're just doing our job."

The new transmission line will be the biggest upgrade to the national electricity grid since the 1950s - a $500 million project with 480 pylons up to 70m high stretching across the countryside.

The two proposed routes cut a swathe across the central North Island, slicing through farmland, forests and rural settlements.

But Mr Tucker says an investigation which looked at residential areas, historical areas, regional and district plans and the lie of the land showed the proposed options were the best.

So as Transpower choppers buzzed along the routes last week making topographical maps, he and his colleagues were bracing themselves for public updates on the project from Tuesday next week.

Meetings in November last year drew crowds of irate placard-carrying, cowbell-ringing farmers.

Mr Tucker said the perception was that the rest of the country should stop coughing up to fix Auckland's problem.

"The reality is, it's not an Auckland problem. The work we are doing will keep the lights on in the Hamilton region, in the Coromandel region, Auckland, Waitakere, and the Manukau cities, the North Shore and Northland."

More public progress meetings are scheduled for April before an interim decision on the project's route is made in May. The final decision will come in June.

Transpower is also proposing meetings with a panel of health experts in March after emotive argument about the health effects of the lines at last November's meetings.

Mr Tucker said the existing pylons - the Arapuni to Pakuranga 110kV line, built in the 1920s, and the Whakamaru to Otahuhu lines A, B and C, built in the 1950s and 60s - could no longer take Auckland's growing electricity load.

Regarding landowners' calls for compensation, he said many of them already lived with lines running across their properties.

The main difference is that farmers will have to grant Transpower a 65m to 100m-wide easement for the new pylons.

Mr Tucker said energy efficiency was not an alternative, as people's power consumption habits were too hard to change.

Power savings and upgrading the existing lines would keep the lights on until 2010, but there were no guarantees after that.

Ultimately, the new Electricity Commission will decide the best solution to Auckland's power woes. Transpower will present the proposal to commissioner Roy Hemmingway later in the year.

If it wins approval, Transpower hopes to notify local councils of its plans by April next year and begin building in 2007 - although Mr Tucker expects the battle will end up in the Environment Court.

Similar fights may emerge further south. Public consultation for a line from Waitaki Valley to Christchurch is expected to start this year and the line across Cook Strait also needs upgrading.

What it's about

* The top half of the North Island - especially Auckland - can't get enough electricity from the rest of the country because its transmission lines are out of date.

* Transpower, the company which runs the national grid, wants to solve the problem by building a new line of bigger pylons up to 70m high through private land across Waikato and South Auckland.

* Many landowners are horrified. They say the pylons will wreck their property values, restrict their ability to use their land and may also damage their health.