Burnham-On-Sea’s MP has held talks with a green energy company about the possibility of burying a controversial new power line that is set to run across the Somerset countryside.
National Grid wants to build a line of 46.5m tall pylons in a ‘route corridor’ that will run past the Burnham area, through the village of Mark and close to East Huntspill and Watchfield.
Tessa Munt discused the plans for transmission of power with representatives of the Greenwire project, which has secured an agreement with National Grid for a 3,000MW grid connection to the mainland, providing clean, green electricity generated from onshore wind turbines in central Ireland.
The Greenwire project has the potential to supply the UK with 10 terawatt hours of renewable power annually, which is enough to power three million homes. Greenwire is one the largest onshore energy projects in the EU, connecting the onshore wind farms in Ireland to two substations in Wales using underground and subsea methods.
Tessa told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “I am committed to finding alternatives to the universally unpopular National Grid plan to erect pylons across the Somerset countryside.”
“The Greenwire project clearly shows it is possible to use both underground and underwater methods to revamp our crumbling energy infrastructure, not just having to revert to 1920s technology destroying communities and our countryside.”
