Works to dismantle the 220 kilovolt (kV) line that runs parallel to the Vic-Bescanó-Santa Llogaia 400 kV axis has started today in Folgueroles (Osona). Specifically, this project consists in the dismantling of 100 towers of the 220 kV line between Vic and Bescanó along a 38-kilometre stretch of line. The section of line to be dismantled crosses through the municipalities of Vic, Folgueroles, Sant Sadurní d'Osomort and Vilanova de Sau, in the province of Barcelona, and Sant Hilari Sacalm, Osor, Santa Coloma de Farners, Brunyola, Anglès and Bescanó, in the province of Girona.

The execution of these works has been possible thanks to the commissioning, at the beginning of this year, of the La Farga substation (located between the municipalities of Sant Julià de Ramis and Cervià de Ter) and which helped complete the 400 kV axis. This axis aims to improve the quality and security of the electricity supply throughout the area north of Girona and that of central Costa Brava.

The deadline for the completing the works is six months and consist in the dismantling of the cables, the removal of towers, the demolition of the foundations and the restoration of the land. Subsequently, the section of 110 kV line in the Guilleries area and that of the 132 kV line between the new La Farga substation and Santa Llogaia (Alt Empordà) will be dismantled. The dismantling work of the 220-kV line between Bescanó and La Farga is currently being finalised; this part of the project involves the removal of 52 towers and the restoration of the landscape along a stretch of 18.5 kilometres.

The dismantling work has been presented today in a ceremony held in Folgueroles which was attended by the Regional Minister of Business and Knowledge for the Generalitat, Àngels Chacón; the General Director of Energy for the Generalitat, Pere Palacín; the delegate of the Government in Central Catalonia, Alba Camps, and the Mayors of Vic, Bescanó and Folgueroles, who were received by Eva Pagán, the General Manager of Transmission Division for Red Eléctrica.

The four dismantling projects are the result of an agreement between Red Eléctrica, the Regional Government of Catalonia and the municipalities affected by the route, and through which the new 400 kV Sentmenat-Vic-Bescanó-Santa Llogaia axis will incorporate, through the implementation of the line compaction system, the electricity lines that ran parallel to the 400 kV line. When the project is completed, the construction of the new line will not have represented an increase in the number of towers, as the number of old towers removed coincides with the number of new towers built.

The elimination of the old electricity line routes represents the most important landscape restoration carried out in Spain in recent years regarding an electricity infrastructure and strengthens Red Eléctrica’s environmental commitment to the territory.