Journal of Environmental Research

Environmental coexistence of the overhead transmission lines in urban and rural areas

Joint Event on 5^th International Conference on Pollution Control and Sustainable Environment & 10^th Edition of International Conference on Water: Pollution, Treatment & Research
March 14-16, 2019 London, UK

Silviu Harabagiu

Gopa-intec, Romania

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Environ Res

Abstract

The world is in a growing need for electric power and this is in direct relation with the technological progress. Considering only the uprising of the electrical cars or the need for more robots for the manufacturing industries and we will have a good image of the need for solutions to transport the energy from the producer to the consumers. Until the present days, the long distance transport of the electric power has been performed almost exclusively through the overhead transmission lines. However, awareness that human activities and increased built development can affect habitats and species, potentially endangering them, has led to environmental protection laws and measures in probably all countries, particularly in the last few decades. Questions of how new high voltage overhead lines (OHLs) are routed, and how closely they come to existing homes or built developments, or to precious landscapes and natural areas, are often issues not only for communities and citizens but also for electricity utilities themselves. Closely related to this, is the issue of how new homes or other built development is planned or sited near to existing OHLs. These issues can be contentious, with cases of citizens, environmental organizations and building developers lobbying electricity utilities, while municipalities and politicians, to seek to have OHLs located as far as possible away from buildings. Their motives may be fear of electric and magnetic field (EMF), belief that visual quality will be negatively affected, or loss of monetary value of buildings or land proposed for building development, national parks or other areas they wish to preserve for reasons of landscape beauty, historical importance or nature conservation. Therefore how new OHLs are routed through or near them can be challenging for the suppliers, authorities, (NGOs), people living close to the new OHLs and for the general public.