Truce in sight for pylon war

Landowners in the path of Transpower's giant pylons were given hope yesterday that the proposal will be put off.

Electricity Commission chairman Roy Hemmingway presented the affected community - mainly farmers - with a number of alternatives that could delay construction of the 70m pylons as far out as 2021.

The commission has been charged with deciding if Transpower's proposal to construct 450 new pylons across nearly 200km of Waikato and South Auckland land is the best option for quenching the country's thirst for more electricity.

By June next year the commission will either give the green light to Transpower's proposal, or will ask it to go back to the drawing board to find a better solution.

New developments revealed yesterday included an alternative of upgrading present lines so they could carry a heavier load of electricity.

Transpower could do this by "thermally uprating" its existing 220kV lines, while adding a further three lines to all pylons (called duplexing). It was estimated the cost would be about $500 million - the same as building the new lines.

If that happened, the need for a new pylon infrastructure could be put off until 2021, Mr Hemmingway said.

That solution was one of about a dozen presented by the commission.

Farmer Richard Murray congratulated Mr Hemmingway and his team at the end of the presentation.

"You've shed some light at the end of what's been a very, very long, dark tunnel," he said.

"To put a human face on this, I represent a property that's been in the family for 50 years, on which they are proposing building four pylons.

"One of the pylons is 100m from a house where a couple with three young children live," said Mr Murray.

"It's going to be the height of an 18-storey building. It's totally unacceptable."

Another farmer, Christina Baldwin, asked if alternative routes had been investigated.

Mr Hemmingway said that was not the commission's role, but routing could be a big issue in the Resource Management Act process at district and regional council level.

He said a cost-benefit analysis was yet to be undertaken, which would measure Transpower's present proposal against all the alternatives.

It was for that reason Mr Hemmingway could not say whether he favoured any alternative solution over the Transpower plan.

However, he did say that "buying time" had a number of advantages.

If new gas reserves were discovered or cheap LNG could be sourced, new gas-fired power stations could be built in or near Auckland.

Also, a decision on the life of Southland's Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter was expected by the end of 2007.

That plant used 15 per cent of the country's electricity. If production ceased in 2012, new capacity would be freed up, which was the equivalent of six years in demand growth.

Transpower has insisted it needs the 400kV line built by 2010, and spokesman Chris Roberts was guarded in his response to what was revealed yesterday. "We've noted from their announcement all the options involve building a new line of some sort between Whakamaru and Otahuhu."

He would not admit to being encouraged by what the commission had come up with.


What happens now?

January 2006
* Comparison of short-list and Transpower's proposed 400kV line.

Feb/March
* Draft decision on Transpower's line.

March/April/May
* Consultation

June
* Final decision