Jeanette Fitzsimons: Giant power lines not the right answer

Jeanette Fitzsimons

Sometimes societies ask individuals and communities to make sacrifices for the common good. We all benefit today from infrastructure that once cost someone their home, quality of life or livelihood. It is our duty to ensure that such sacrifices are actually necessary.

Right now, 1400 families in the Waikato are being asked to accept giant transmission towers on their properties, ruining views and, in some cases, farm operations. The 400 kVa lines would go right over many houses, meaning residents must live within powerful electromagnetic fields.

There is disagreement on the health effects of such fields, but recent studies showing a link with leukaemia are just one of the concerns. Some countries take the risk seriously enough to require a development-free corridor under such lines, based on an exposure standard much more stringent than New Zealand's.

Why are the lines needed? Transpower, a state-owned company that owns and runs the national grid of high-tension lines, says they will keep the lights on in Auckland. But how can they do that? They provide no extra power, they are just a corridor, a pipe, along which power will be sent.

At present, there is little surplus power to send. The lines will contribute nothing until someone builds more big power stations south of Taupo.

There are no more suitable sites for giant dams, so the most likely option is coal.

There are vast lignite reserves in Southland that can be used only on-site because they are low-quality, wet and too expensive to transport elsewhere. So new power generation must be added to the at least $500 million cost of the new lines. Add to that the climatic cost of burning more coal and the loss of valuable Kyoto carbon credits.

This represents 1950s energy thinking. A 21st century, environmentally friendly energy policy would have smaller power stations, mostly using renewable energy sources, closer to demand with fewer line losses; local grids linked by a national grid no more powerful than we have now; and much, much less energy waste.

But if the lines are a bad idea, what are the alternatives? The problem is that alternatives have never been properly evaluated. But they do exist, so we owe the people in the lines' path a proper investigation of what could be done instead.

To understand the alternatives, you have to understand the problem with current supply. So what's wrong with the present 220 kVa powerlines, crossing many of the same farms as the planned ones would?

Most of the time, nothing. But on the coldest winter days when demand is highest between 4pm and 7pm they will soon run out of capacity. The winter peak occurs because people come home and turn on their lights, heaters and ovens while industry and businesses are still hard at work.

So we need to target policy at this winter peak period. There are two main ways to do it: build more generation close to Auckland and farther north, and reduce the demand on cold winter afternoons. It will be a mixture of both that gets us through winter.

A number of good wind sites exist north of Auckland. Wind farms can be built in a year, as was the Te Apiti wind farm. But they are not the whole answer because the wind may not blow when you most need it.

Northland has a large amount of wood waste associated with new forests. Any new wood-processing industries in Northland should have to use all their own waste before drawing any power from the grid. Some plants, like Kinleith, generate their own power and process heat from wood and send a useful amount of power to the rest of the grid. We should do more of this.

There are far more opportunities to shift the peak load and reduce demand. Energy-efficient lighting could reduce power consumption by 80 per cent. There are big opportunities in industry for more efficient motors and in commercial buildings for refits of lighting, heating and ventilation systems that reduce the load.

Using gas as a direct fuel for heating and cooking is around twice as efficient as burning it in power stations, but fewer than a third of the houses with gas pipes past their gates are connected.

High-efficiency wood burners with low pollution can be a good option for winter heating. New technology for cowsheds uses ice banks to spread the refrigeration load across the whole day and night, lowering power costs and reducing peak load.

In the longer term, all new buildings should be built to take advantage of direct solar gain, thermal storage for heating and shading, with natural ventilation for cooling. This would help to stop the demand growing.

So whose job is it to put together a proposal combining all these things to make the lines unnecessary? Unfortunately, no-one's. The new Electricity Commission is charged with assessing proposals for alternatives to ensure the lines are needed before giving them the go-ahead.

Transpower advertised for alternative bids, and gave just two months for them to be developed. But there is no one with the funding or incentive or the power to put the proposal together. The gas retailers in Auckland are also the electricity retailers and generators. We are going through the motions of a competitive market when there isn't one.

Perhaps the commission could call together the likely participants, help them to form a consortium and finance the study, then assess the results. After all, we have at least $500 million plus the cost of several new power stations to play with.