About a quarter of power lines in Belarus are laid through agricultural land - Belenergo

Approximately 22% of power lines in the country pass through agricultural fields. This was told on the air of the TV channel STV by Deputy Chief Engineer of GPO "Belenergo" Valery Porshnev, writes sb.by.

According to him, all power lines are registered, and the areas under them are officially reserved for energy:

- Maintaining the support in proper condition is our responsibility. In accordance with the tax legislation, we pay taxes for allotted land. These funds go to the budget. To date, there is no debt in this direction from power engineers. We do not make other payments for placing supports on foreign lands.

Planned repairs of power engineers try to carry out in those periods when access to the fields is open: either after harvesting, or before the start of sowing. Terms of work are agreed with the owners of the site.

- If during the work, we damage the field, then in cooperation with the owners we compensate for the damage caused, the deputy chief engineer said.

He also recalled that electricity is transmitted through both air and cable lines. At the same time, laying a cable line costs 2.5-3 times more expensive than an air line.

- Power engineers make every effort to implement new technologies in the electric grid. We are considering the possibility of using cable lines. For example, in Minsk, it was decided to lay lines with a voltage of 110 kV only in cable version, said Valery Porshnev.

When building new power lines, specialists try to bypass farmland and, if possible, abandon overhead lines in favor of underground cable communications.