April 5, 2012
England

Fears over route of underground wind farm cables in Lincolnshire

East Coast Target, www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk 5 April 2012

Concerns over the route of underground cables have been raised after the developers behind Triton Knoll wind farm contacted local landowners to carry out surveys.

RWE npower renewables, who are behind the offshore wind farm proposals, wrote to landowners from Ingoldmells through to Gunby last week, requesting access to their land for “non-intrusive ecological surveys”.

In January 2012, National Grid agreed to allow RWE to connect to an existing substation at Bicker Fen via an underground cabling route, meaning plans for a substation in East Lindsey were scrapped.

The surveys will be the first step in assessing potential options for the cable route but concerns have been raised about the disruption the latest proposals could have.

Councillor Colin Davie, said: “The cables should go on the seabed and take the shortest underground land route to the substation at Bicker Fen.

“Coming onshore on the coast at Ingoldmells and travelling to Bicker Fen would be simply plain wrong and an environmental disaster for the whole area.

“It is simply unacceptable for RWE to come back again with this proposal.”

RWE plan to ask specialist environmental surveyors to survey for newts, breeding birds, badgers, reptiles, bats and water voles over the coming year from April to February.

Project manager at RWE, Jacob Hain, said: “National Grid’s offer is based on the use of underground cables, installed between Triton Knoll and Bicker Fen substation which would export the power generated by the offshore wind farm into the existing electricity grid.

“In order to find the best potential routes for the electricity cables, we commenced onshore and offshore environmental and engineering studies.

“These initial studies have helped us to narrow down the route options. We now want to investigate these options further by undertaking environmental surveys and have written to a number of landowners to request their permission to do this.”

District councillor for Willoughby and Sloothby, Angie Smith, who led the substation campaign, said: “I am very disappointed RWE are still trying to use our area for any part of the Triton Knoll project considering the significant amount of disruption the cable routing alone was proved would cause to local farmers, businesses, coastal traffic routes and local residents.”


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/04/05/fears-over-route-of-underground-wind-farm-cables-in-lincolnshire/