The decision of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), together with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and National Grid, to launch a competition to design the next generation of electricity pylons; prompts a reflection on the existing system which includes 22,000 pylons on National Grid’s main transmission network in England and Wales. Standing 50 metres high and weighing around 30 tonnes, the original design was chosen by Sir Reginald Blomfield, a classical architect who designed the rebuilding of Piccadilly in London in the nineteen twenties. Fiercely anti – modern, he opposed the futuristic designs of the pioneers in electricity transmission : Russia, North America and Sweden and for his inspiration went back to the Greek root of the word pylon meaning the gateway of an Egyptian temple. The prospect of pylons striding confidently across the landscape was perhaps what he had in mind, but this failed to persuade the critics who during the building period of 1928 – 1933 fought a vigorous campaign in opposition to the scheme through the letters pages of the The Times. They included Rudyard Kipling, John Maynard Keynes and Hilaire Belloc and the CPRE, fighting one of it’s first campaigns.

Central Electricity Board set up

Undaunted Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had introduced The Electricity Supply Bill to parliament in 1926. At that time coal and gas were the main energy sources and only 6 % of households had access to electricity, which was supplied by a confusing range of private and municipal companies, with varying voltages. The upshot was that electricity was prohibitively expensive for the average householder. There was great suspicion of the Bill. It was likened to Stalin’s five-year soviet plan, but it was passed and in that same year  – the year of the General Strike – the Central Electricity Board was created. It would take 100,000 workers five years to complete 4,000 miles of transmission cable, and in 1929 when Labour won the general election, the new housing minister Herbert Morrison who was charged with its completion, pursued the construction with great enthusiasm, so that it came in on time and within budget.

Working through the Blitz

During the wartime blitz, the National Grid kept the lights burning and the factories working as power was brought to London from South Wales and Scotland, when power stations in the capital were badly damaged by enemy bombing.  It was a supreme irony that the National Grid played such an important part in the country’s ability to withstand the relentless enemy bombing, as Baldwin had been accused by Churchill,  and others for failing to confront the threat posed by Germany in the nineteen thirties.

Before the motorways were built, the National Grid had the greatest impact on the English countryside, and the CPRE, as in the 1930’s  contemplates the prospect of a further 20 power stations in the next decade with some dread. In 2009 author Bill Bryson CPRE’s President said that tens of thousands of pylons already march across our countryside, and we don’t need to add still more. He implored that we can and should start to put a number of existing lines underground or under the sea.As well as exploring the design of the pylon itself, the competition aimed to explore the relationship between energy infrastructure and the environment.

New low – carbon generation

Much of the new low – carbon generation is planned for remote or coastal areas, which means new infrastructure will be needed to bring the electricity to homes, businesses and vehicles some distance from the source. Connecting new wind farms and nuclear power stations to the grid will require 300 miles of new transmission lines and up to 1,000 new pylons Underground construction  which can cost ten times more than overhead construction,  and is much harder to maintain,  will be a viable solution in some sensitive locations, but new and replacement pylons will be needed.

In 2016 National Grid in response to a vigorous campaign, alarmed at the impact on the scenery of the Lake District, of a 23.4km ( 14.5 miles ) line of pylons to link a proposed new power station at Moorside , near Sellafield, to the national grid, agreed that the connection should go underground. The previous year the company had agreed a £500 m scheme to bury existing power lines in Snowdonia, the Peak District, the New Forest and Dorset. This was a major concession because not only is burying the cable much more expensive, but the field generated by an alternating current interacts with the ground more than it does with the air. This creates losses 40 times higher in a buried cable than in an aerial one.

Design Competition winners

The design competition results were announced by National Grid in 2011 and of the six short-listed designs, the T -pylon designed by Bystrup – a Danish  engineering company, was chosen by the 10 – strong judging panel as the winning design, ahead of the Amanda Levete design, described as Plexus, a bow – shaped structure, which had won much critical acclaim. Former RIBA president George Ferguson commented “Of the six finalist, to my mind it seems the cleverest…. I think it`s an elegant solution -it`s T for timeless”. He described the Levete design as ” beautiful in itself” , but added:” When you think of having thousands of these across the country, it becomes a bit mannered. I can see it dating quicker.”

The T -pylon , which signals the transition into renewables, is made from steel and the tower design is shorted and leaner than traditional lattice towers , having less visual impact and a shorter installation process. The T-pylon also holds cables in a different way to traditional pylons. Instead of being attached to three arms on a lattice pylon, the T-pylon uses a diamond arrangement to carry  the cables off one arm.

Since 2011 , National Grid has been working to ensure that the design can work in practice- for example standing up to 80 mph winds, or the additional weight of snow in winter. Six of the new T-pylons have been installed at National Grid`s training academy in Eakring, and the T-pylon is now scheduled to connect the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to the UK`s electricity transmission network. The new pylon allows the route of the transmission lines to following the contours of the land rather than the sudden changes in direction that characterised the routes with lattice pylons.

The Brexit pylon

The distinctive triangular – latticed look of the pylon signalled a huge stride towards an efficient and dependable source of energy , in the 1920`s , when the National Strike of 1926, was causing social anxiety and economic uncertainty. The number of consumers  of electricity grew from less than a million in 1920 to nine million in 1938 – the fastest rate of growth in the world. At the time of Brexit, the T- pylon may be seen in future, as signalling a confident, assertive step, towards energy sustainability  through solar and wind power and nuclear energy.