Impressive sustainability

In Den­mark, the first three pro­to­types of a com­plete­ly redesigned util­i­ty pole have been stand­ing since August. They could deci­sive­ly boost the expan­sion of the grids and thus the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion as well.

A kilo­me­ter of over­head line in one day! The part­ners of the Euro­pean Com­pos­ite Pylon (ECP) project erect­ed three util­i­ty­poles in the new design at a dis­tance of 350 meters from each oth­er in this record time on test­ing grounds in Den­mark. The poles were devel­oped as an alter­na­tive to steel-lat­tice pylons in a project spon­sored by the Euro­pean Union and test­ed in the field for the first time in August after a two-year design phase. Pow­er Com­pos­ites (PC) con­tributed the two 16-meter sup­port arms for the Y‑shaped poles.

1 DAY
dura­tion of instal­la­tion for three poles

Dr. Matthias Domm, Tech­ni­cal Project Man­ag­er, explains, “Installing three con­ven­tion­al poles would have tak­en more than a week. How­ev­er, short instal­la­tion times are cru­cial to the suc­cess of the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion. To get it done, new pow­er lines are need­ed urgent­ly.” The new util­i­ty poles are only half as tall as before, thus mak­ing a much small­er mark on the land­scape. As a result, the pub­lic should be more accept­ing of new lines and the approval process should go more quick­ly.

< 30 METERS
height of the poles

The util­i­ty poles of the future not only make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion, but are also envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly them­selves. Due to their com­pact size and the low num­ber of indi­vid­ual com­po­nents, the util­i­ty poles are lighter and require sig­nif­i­cant­ly less mate­r­i­al.

< 400 KV
trans­mis­sion volt­age

Anoth­er plus is that only three square meters of sur­face area are need­ed for the foun­da­tion, as op­posed to 64. This means sig­nif­i­cant­ly less con­crete is poured and less land is sealed. The new util­i­ty poles could soon become a famil­iar sight in the coun­try­side as all of the mechan­i­cal and elec­tri­cal tests required by stan­dards for the insu­la­tion arms have been passed suc­cess­ful­ly. This means that the poles can be put into oper­a­tion imme­di­ate­ly.

REINHAUSEN INSIDE

The Euro­pean Com­pos­ite Pylon project was ini­ti­at­ed with the Dan­ish design firm BYSTRUP and imple­ment­ed togeth­er with Val­mont SM, Nex­ans, Der­vaux. and Pow­er Com­pos­ites (PC). The sup­port arms of the util­i­ty poles, con­sist­ing of hol­low com­pos­ite insu­la­tors with a sil­i­cone shield sleeve, were devel­oped by Rein­hausen Pow­er Com­pos­ites and pro­duced by Rein­hausen France. These not only bear the weight of the trans­mis­sion lines, but also ful­fill the func­tion of elec­tri­cal insu­la­tion at the same time.

YOUR CONTACT


Do you have any ques­tions about the util­i­ty poles of the future?
Dr. Matthias Domm is avail­able for you:
M.Domm@reinhausen.com

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