People are going to be angry about pylons.

0:00 The technical term for these things is 'transmission towers'.

0:03 But here in Britain, we call them pylons.

0:05 And we've got tens of thousands of them across the country.

0:08 The first National Grid was built in the interwar years,

0:12 and it was the largest peacetime construction project Britain had ever seen.

0:16 A single power network across the country.

0:18 Pylons became part of the landscape of Britain,

0:21 just as they had around the world,

0:23 despite the objections of many landowners, traditionalists, and poets.

0:27 These exist because overhead lines are

0:29 a fraction of the price of underground cables,

0:31 and they're much, much easier and faster to maintain.

0:34 If there's a fault, you don't need

0:35 to bring in heavy equipment and dig anything up.

0:37 Instead, you dispatch a team to climb.

0:40 And that team will have learned the job here,

0:42 at the National Grid Training Centre near Eakring in the East Midlands.

0:46 And today, one of those teams is going to take me up on the wires.

0:50 So here at the Training Centre, we have over 300 graduates and apprentices

0:54 training in overhead lines and substation technologies.

0:58 The team that have trained here will undertake a range of roles.

1:01 They might be overhead line operators,

1:03 so they'll be climbing towers, responding to faults.

1:06 They also conduct visual inspections.

1:08 We have a team of drone and helicopter pilots that keep the network operating.

1:13 And then we have substation teams as well.

1:15 So they would look at cleaning

1:17 and replacing different equipment within our substations.

1:20 I haven't looked at any point out or down to see how high I am.

1:24 I'm just kind of going, there's the next bolt, there's the next bolt.

1:28 And I'm aware that the professionals ...are doing this much faster than me.

1:34 And I'm fine with that.

1:36 We have a team of 2,400 people that monitor and operate,

1:41 maintain the network around the clock, 24/7.

1:44 This might be in response to weather or faults on the network.

1:47 And they keep the energy flowing.

1:49 Presumably, you're up here in all weathers.

1:51 You'll have dealt with rain and snow.

1:53 In an emergency, they definitely work in bad weather.

1:56 Can you just take one more step up?

1:57 Yep.

1:58 We'll attach you onto the actual tower.

2:02 Give you a bit more space.

2:03 Thank you.

2:05 Oh, it's not a bad view either, is it?

2:07 Yeah, it's not bad around here.

2:08 So what, this is first arm.

2:10 Yep, bottom phase, middle phase, top phase.

2:12 Huh, it's different phase of power on each arm?

2:15 Yep.

2:15 Right!

2:16 That makes sense.

2:17 Because otherwise the three would kind of interact with each other on the wires.

2:20 So we have 22,000 pylons.

2:22 Each pylon weighs approximately 30 tons.

2:24 4,500 miles of overhead line, and 900 miles of underground cable.

2:29 Because we're at our training school,

2:32 we've got all different combinations of wires in different formations.

2:36 We've got our new towers there.

2:37 Yeah, the T-pylons.

2:39 T-pylons, yep.

2:39 Which aren't as high.

2:40 No, they're a bit lower.

2:42 I'll keep climbing.

2:45 Oh, it's getting real windy now!

2:47 You're doing good, Tom.

2:48 If you're wondering...

2:50 this is the point where the nerves kicked in.

2:52 I don't know if that's coming across on microphone and camera, but...

2:56 the wind is whistling through the metal and through the wires.

3:02 Okay.

3:02 Well done, Tom.

3:04 (laughs) Thank you.

3:05 There's plenty of people who don't get up here.

3:07 Mind the head.

3:13 Oh, how's that?

3:14 (laughs) We own and operate the network in England and Wales.

3:21 We also operate parts of Scotland.

3:24 This training centre was built in the heart of the country

3:27 because a lot of the power stations were around here,

3:28 in the Midlands and Yorkshire.

3:30 Because a lot of the coal that fuelled

3:32 those power stations was being dug up around here.

3:35 Not all of it– there was plenty in Scotland and Tyneside and South Wales too.

3:39 And a cluster of power stations down on the Thames.

3:42 But if you were going to pick a spot in the centre

3:45 of the power grid to have the best access of every pylon ...you'd pick here.

3:50 But things are changing, and have been changing, for decades.

3:53 The only coal-fired station left in Britain is about

3:57 an hour south on the other side of Nottingham,

3:59 and that'll close down within a year.

4:01 The main replacement right now is gas,

4:03 and those stations tend to be on the coast,

4:06 where enormous tankers of liquid natural gas can dock.

4:10 The nuclear plants are by the coast too, for easy access to cooling water.

4:14 And then there's the wind.

4:16 Britain is a windswept island!

4:18 And we already get a quarter of all our power from the wind,

4:21 with half of that from colossal fields of turbines offshore.

4:25 And there are more, and more, and more of those being built.

4:29 Britain's entire power grid has been steadily turning inside out for years.

4:34 As anyone who lives in a former coal

4:36 mining community like this knows all too well,

4:38 power generation just isn't happening here anymore.

4:41 Electricity isn't being pushed out from the centre.

4:44 Instead, it's being brought in from the coast.

4:49 Alright, next stop...

4:51 Down on the wires.

4:53 I've got to be honest with you, that ladder is swaying a lot more than I'd like.

4:57 Aye, I'm going to go down first, and I'll get it a lot more stable for you.

5:01 (laughs) Thank you!

5:02 National Grid's role is to move energy around the country.

5:05 We don't generate energy.

5:07 We just connect it to our network.

5:09 It's weird to see all this infrastructure and not hear the bu— I mean,

5:11 I guess if you hear the buzzing and you're on here, you're really in trouble.

5:15 In total today, we have 65 gigawatts of generation connected to the network.

5:18 That's a whole range of sources.

5:20 So we have about 90 sources of generation.

5:23 And the government has a target to connect

5:24 an additional 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.

5:28 Oh!

5:28 Step down.

5:29 Okay.

5:30 Like it's any normal ladder.

5:31 A lot of metres above the ground.

5:33 That's fine.

5:34 The ladder is angled the wrong way.

5:37 My arms are further back than my legs.

5:39 In order to connect the 50 gigawatts

5:41 of offshore wind that we're seeing out at sea,

5:43 we need to create a series of subsea cables,

5:46 new overhead lines, in order to move that energy across the network.

5:51 As it stands, we know that we need to construct five times as much

5:55 infrastructure in the next seven years as we have in the last 30.

5:59 So if you just stop there for two seconds...

6:01 Yep.

6:02 You can stand on this.

6:04 And it's pretty secure.

6:05 That was fun, okay.

6:07 (clattering) (groans) Okay, one foot on each wire.

6:13 Wherever you feel comfortable, you're perfectly fine.

6:15 Alright.

6:19 Wow!

6:20 It's all pretty sturdy stuff.

6:22 You didn't have to prove that by bouncing though!

6:24 (both laughing) It's impossible to disentangle politics from the power grid.

6:30 When the National Grid was first built,

6:32 the government had to ignore so many complaints to push it through.

6:35 But the benefits were obvious.

6:37 And even the folks who rallied against pylons would have to admit

6:40 that the result was probably worth it compared to no electricity.

6:44 But now, and over the next few years,

6:47 there are going to be political fights and protests, large and small.

6:50 Because for the first time in nearly a century,

6:53 there are some big and tough decisions to be made about pylons.

6:59 [Caption+ by JS* caption.plus| @caption_plus]