At first the mayor of Niederaichbach thought “such a rubbish” when he heard of electric shocks under a high-voltage line near the Isar II nuclear power plant. Then he put himself under it.
It also sounds implausible when, in the country of TÜV and DIN standards, suddenly walkers report that they are receiving electric shocks under a high-voltage line. It’s easy, but the relaxation in nature should have been gone.
“Such a rubbish” he thought when he first heard about it, said Mayor Josef Klaus von Niederaichbach in autumn. Then the notices piled up in the town hall of the municipality in the Landshut district.
So Josef Klaus made his way to the high-voltage line near the Isar II nuclear power plant and stood under it. At the top, 380 kilovolts flowed – at the bottom it crackled in the fingers and it tingled in the legs. Especially when the meadows were damp.
Fortunately, there is the TÜV to substantiate the feeling with facts: The community commissioned an expert report, reports Klaus. Result: The limit values for the electrical field strength were exceeded.
The town hall chief advised residents to avoid walking along the power line – especially people with pacemakers should choose a different route for the sake of their health.
The management had caused problems before: They danced
In the meantime, the responsible company Tennet has provided a remedy, as a company spokesman and the mayor say: The phase assignment of the lines has been changed, the spokesman explained. For this purpose, Tennet had to obtain approval from the governments of Upper and Lower Bavaria and set a time window in which the line could be temporarily disconnected from the network.
According to the company, there had been problems with the line during storms in the early 1990s because it then “danced” and short circuits occurred. As a result, the phase assignment of the lines was changed as early as 1994 and at least this problem was solved. The company was only informed last year that this in turn led to electric shocks.
The entire line is to be renewed between 2022 and 2024. That was due anyway after 40 or 50 years, said the spokesman.
Hopefully the new power line will neither dance nor cause an uncomfortable tingling sensation.