GERMOGLI

HDA’s design for high-tension electricity pylons was the winning entry in a competition held by Terna in Italy. Terna is a private national electricity provider that is undergoing a phased modernizing of their 60000km network. Conscious of the fact that electricity lines of galvanized trellises have a negative image in the public eye, Terna wished to improve the environmental impact of their pylons on the landscape, and the brief invited the competitors to specifically address these issues. HDA’s response was to change the current ‘industrial soldier’ image of today’s pylons, by creating an elegant shape whose form is inspired by nature. So the form of the steel mast and arms give the Germogli – Italian for ‘first green shoots’ – their characteristic image.

The electrical conductors are suspended from an array of prestressed cables and composite insulators. This tensile system is transparent, minimizing visual obstruction. The flexible support it provides for the conductors allows non-linear load-sharing to be developed between pylons along the line, damping out angularities and homogenizing profile dimensions, and thus creating amore fluid composition of the line in the landscape. Terna consider that, in holistic terms, the Germogli pylons facilitate their operations. Despite the unit cost of the new pylons being higher than that of the existing ones, for Terna the improved public acceptance which has been generated by the new design will allow this expense to be completely offset by a decreased outlay on line viabilisation and public enquiries.