How can we strengthen our utility system? Are underground power lines part of the answer? Here are some of the pros and cons of underground power lines. Protection from Strong Winds: During storms with strong winds, power lines can be knocked down leaving residents without power for days. In addition to leaving residents without power, downed power lines pose dangerous electrocution hazards. Moving power lines underground would eliminate these complications!
In Palm Beach, concrete power poles were installed to strengthen the electrical grid in the highly hurricane-prone area. The concrete polls installed were not well received by Palm Beach residents. Each year, hurricanes, snowstorms, and an assortment of other weather events destroy above-ground utility poles. Heavy snow and ice can snap wires. More commonly, ferocious winds topple utility poles themselves , or uproot neighboring trees, which drag nearby wires down with them.
The costs of the corresponding outages are immense. Numerous analyses show even a one hour power outage can cost commercial and industrial facilities tens of thousands of dollars —and outages often last much longer. In specialized industries like museums , a power outage can mean the difference between a safe, stable climate for art and an environment that starts to quickly degrade priceless artifacts.
Undergrounding could reduce the number of hurricane-related outages in some places. But these buried lines bring with them their own problems—and price tag. There are two methods used to toss out poles and taking utility cables underground. The cheapest method is called open trenching, where utility companies dig into the earth, laying down the string of utility networks as they go and backfilling the trenches later. This often requires rerouting traffic and other significant albeit short term changes to the movement of a community.
Many municipalities opt instead for directional drilling. Adapted from an old oil and gas technique, directional drilling is a less invasive—but more expensive—option for undergrounding utilities. From a fixed point, installers can drive a pipe through a carefully-plotted, miles-long subterranean channel without disrupting street-level activities.
We receive this question often especially after our customers lose power. We do bury power lines. For over 50 years, we have been installing underground cables where feasible. In fact, well over one-third of the DTE system is currently underground. Since , underground lines have been installed exclusively during the construction phase of all new subdivisions and other construction projects where possible. Relocating existing overhead lines underground would cause massive disruption to communities from existing trees and their root systems, to swimming pools and swing sets.
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