Electricity transmission towers due for a makeover

With all the looming energy challenges on our plates — peak oil, unstable petro-nations, rising population and consumption levels in oil-producing countries, climate change and so on — is re-designing the electricity transmission tower, also known as a pylon, really a top priority?

Officials in the UK, which has just launched a competition for a new pylon design, believe it is important. The current design of electricity towers hasn’t changed in more than 80 years, they argue, and there have been dramatic advances in metallurgy and engineering since then. With a growing supply of renewable energy feeding into the grid and regulations demanding greater efficiency and lower carbon emissions, the infrastructure needs updating anyway.

While underground power lines tend to be smarter both in terms of resilience and aesthetics, it’s not possible to bury transmission cables everywhere. (And going underground is also more expensive.) That means a new generation of above-ground transmission structures will also need to go up.

“(I)t is important that we get the look of that as right as we can,” said Chris Huhne, Secretary of Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Being led by the Royal Institute of British Architects for DECC and National Grid, the competition, Huhne said, is “designed to find the leading-edge pylon design that will stand us in good stead for the next 80 years.”

So what’s so tough about designing a good electricity tower? Pretty much everything, considering what the right design has to achieve:

• It has to be physically able to stand up to almost anything nature can throw at it: cold, ice, snow, heat, floods, lightning strikes and gale-force winds. Being as rust-proof as possible is also important.
• It needs to be solidly rooted in concrete, no matter what the underlying surface is.
• It needs to support heavy, high-voltage power lines at high tension levels, even when those lines change direction from one tower to the next, putting additional stresses on the structure.
• It must be relatively easy to access so maintenance crews can perform replacements and repairs with a minimum disruption to electricity service.

And, on top of all that, there’s the aesthetics challenge. People in areas without overhead power lines often object to the obtrusiveness of new facilities. And those who live near existing pylons might resist new designs that appear unconventional or strange.

That’s one of the goals of the new competition as well: to “explore the relationship between energy infrastructure and the environment within which it needs to be located.  The challenge is to design a pylon that has the potential to deliver for future generations, whilst balancing the needs of local communities and preserving the beauty of the countryside.”

“Design has never been far from our energy network,” said Ruth Reed, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. “This is a technically challenging but exciting competition, with the potential to improve our landscapes for decades to come … ”

Entries will be accepted through 12 July, with a shortlist of finalists chosen by the end of July. The finalists’ designs will be open for the public to view and comment on, both online and at an exhibition to be held at the V&A as part of London Design Festival in September. A panel of judges will then meet in October, with a prize fund of £10,000 will be shared amongst the winning candidates.