GridDanish designer wins completion for new U.K. pylons
There are 88,000 pylons in the United Kingdom, carrying 400,000 volts of electricity over thousands of miles across the country; the design of the pylons has barely changed in eighty years – and a winner has just been announced in the competition for a new pylon design
Danish design announced as winner of pylon competition // Source: develop3d.com
There are 88,000 pylons in the United Kingdom, carrying 400,000 volts of electricity over thousands of miles across the country. The design of the pylons has barely changed in eighty years — since the days of Sir Reginald Blomfield.
Since there is a need to add tens of thousands of additional pylons in order to connect wind-farms, solar-panel farms, and wave-energy stations to the grid, the Ministry of Energy and Climate Change has decided to hold a competition for a new pylon design.
The winner was announced last week: a T-Pylon design from Danish company Bystrup.
“This is an innovative design which is simple, classical and practical. Its ingenious structure also means that it will be much shorter and smaller than existing pylons and therefore less intrusive,” gushed Chris Huhne, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change.
Nick Winser, executive director for National Grid, said in a statement: “In the T-Pylon, we have a design that has the potential to be a real improvement on the steel lattice tower. It’s shorter, lighter and the simplicity of the design means it would fit into the landscape more easily. In addition, the design of the electrical components is genuinely innovative and exciting.”
Utilities are not required to adopt the new design, and National Grid has said it was also interested in two alternative designs – the Silhouette from Ian Ritchie Associates and the Totem New Town Studio.
