€6.0M to €3.9M.
35% off the total cost of the recommended scenario, with every field constraint intact.
The Same Design Project, 35% Cheaper.
A 90 km, 138 kV line through dense farmland: 330 towers in the reference design, 242 in the recommended one, and 35% less cost without bending a single constraint.
35%Cut in total project cost for the recommended scenario, without bending a single field constraint.
242Towers in the recommended design, down from 330 in the reference.
42Tension towers in the recommended design, down from 81 in the reference.
The problem.
A 90 km, 138 kV line whose crop-field deflections forced 81 tension towers.
Most transmission lines get built on a single alignment: the one an engineering team had time to draw, check and cost by hand before the project needed an answer. Nobody claims it’s the best route possible. It’s just the only one anyone had the hours to test. This project started the same way.
It was a single-circuit 138 kV line, roughly 90 km of it, cutting through dense farmland. Irrigation pivots and field boundaries kept forcing the route to turn, and every turn needed a tension tower, the priciest structure on the line. By the time the reference design was finished it had 330 towers, 81 of them tension towers, with an average span of 275 m. Which raised an obvious question.
The question behind the study wasn’t whether to relax a standard to save money. It was how much cost could be removed just by exploring the geometry better, without touching a single requirement.
The solution.
Every possible route, tested before one got chosen.
Once a corridor exists as a live digital model, the number of alignments you can test stops being limited by how many an engineer can draw by hand. That same edge runs through every one of our consulting projects: more scenarios tested, less guessing about which one actually costs less. In this corridor, the Digital Twin’s simulation power was what made the difference.
Every pixel of terrain, on a 10 to 30 m grid, got scored: elevation, slope, watercourses, protected areas, land use, buildings, anything legally off-limits. From there the algorithm searched for the route itself, plus where every tower should sit, span lengths, heights, structure types and conductor, all at once, chasing the lowest accumulated cost. It ran two ways: letting the search roam free across the whole study area, and again boxed into a narrow corridor around the original alignment. But scoring the terrain was only half the job.
Once towers were placed, each candidate alignment was checked automatically for mechanical behavior like catenary, sag and swing, for electrical effects like fields and interference, and for geometric clearances. All of it was measured against one cost function that added up structures, conductors, foundations and right-of-way together.
The outcome.
From 330 towers to 242 and the real cost of staying compliant.
The recommended scenario cut total cost by 35%, from roughly €6.0M down to €3.9M. Towers dropped from 330 to 242, tension towers from 81 to 42, the priciest structure on any line. None of it would have been possible without the average span stretching from 275 m to 363 m.
The study also ran a version where the algorithm was allowed to ignore the farmland constraints altogether, changing the rules of the game entirely. That version found even more: 41% in savings, down to €3.6M and 182 towers. But it only held up if the agricultural limits got renegotiated first. It’s a ceiling to know about, more than a number to plan around.
Composite conductors, with a carbon-fiber core, were considered too. They were up to 18% lighter and far more tension-resistant, letting them span longer distances without sagging. That’s a real advantage on a straight, open route. But this line was anything but straight. Constant direction changes from the field boundaries kept spans short regardless of what the conductor could handle. So the final recommendation landed on conventional ACSR conductors instead.
That €350K gap between the two scenarios was literally the cost of staying clear of the crop fields and sticking to existing access roads, turning it into real information for land negotiations and permitting instead of a guess. Insulation coordination, swing under extreme wind, right-of-way width, short-circuit withstand on the shield wire: every one of those checks held up on the recommended design too. Radio interference, audible noise, electric and magnetic fields also came in well under the regulatory limits.
242 towers, 42 tension.
Down from 330 and 81, with the average span stretched from 275 m to 363 m.
€350K.
The measured cost of staying clear of the crop fields and on existing access roads.
| Scenario | Total cost | Towers | Tension towers | Average span |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reference design | €6.0M | 330 | 81 | 275 m |
| Recommended (constraints intact) | €3.9M | 242 | 42 | 363 m |
| Unconstrained (farmland limits renegotiated) | €3.6M | 182 | n/a | n/a |