OREANDA-NEWS. National Grid is to start a major exercise in September to seek the views of people in Cumbria and Lancashire on plans to connect new sources of electricity generation into the national electricity network.

The company has the challenge of achieving a balance between meeting the country's future energy needs while protecting some of the UK's most treasured landscapes.

National Grid has been asked to provide a connection into the electricity transmission network for the proposed new 3.4GW nuclear power station, Moorside, near Sellafield in West Cumbria and to export energy produced by a number of wind farms in the Irish Sea.

Over a five year period, National Grid has been working with local authorities in Lancashire and Cumbria, key groups and individuals on the options available for connecting the proposed new power generation.

Robert Powell, Project Manager said: "The discussions we've had over the course of several years have given us invaluable information which has helped us develop and refine the options for connecting new power generation into our network.

"We're now at a crucial stage of our project. We're getting ready to share with local communities all the work that we have done to date and to seek their views on our findings including what we have identified as our 'emerging preference' at this point.

"We promise to listen, to learn from what we hear and then to seek to develop the project in a way which achieves a balance between meeting our country's future energy needs and protecting the very special landscapes it touches upon."

Richard Greenwood, Head of Operations at Cumbria Tourism said; "We've been working alongside a number of other organisations with National Grid to ensure that they understand the sensitivities of the work they are seeking to do in this part of the country. We all need electricity and want to pay a reasonable price for it but we also need to find a way of making these connections in a way that treads as lightly as possible on our beloved landscape."

Based on feedback and an initial consultation exercise in 2012, National Grid took two connection options forward for further development.

Work since then has focussed on looking at onshore routes to the north of Moorside where the potential exists to follow the path of existing power lines operated by Electricity North West. To the south of Moorside, National Grid considered routes following the path of existing lines as well as routes across Morecambe Bay and through the Irish Sea. Where routes follow Electricity North West lines, there could be scope to remove some existing pylons.

OPTIONS BEING CONSULTED ON

Following these studies, the company has now identified the routes which are its 'emerging preference' at this point in the project:

onshore north from Moorside to a point on the existing network at Harker, near Carlisle and:

onshore south from Moorside across the Barrow Peninsula and through a tunnel under Morecambe Bay which would come up near Heysham in Lancashire to connect into the existing network.

The detail of these routes will be shared during consultation in the autumn together with information on the other options under consideration, including routes offshore through the Irish Sea and overland around the South Lakes. However, there are significant practical, environmental and technical challenges associated with the delivery of both of these.