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A few points about the huge ice storm outage that's wrapping up today. Keep in mind I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I am perhaps unusually knowledgeable about this stuff because of my job:
First, no power outage is acceptable to your power company, period. The longer the outage, the more unacceptable.
People who are outraged at the long outage ask questions like "Why don't we bury all the lines?"
Well, for this storm in particular, there was significant transmission damage. We can't bury transmission lines for any significant length:
https://www.datcllc.com/learn/underground-transmission/
Well, for this storm in particular, there was significant transmission damage. We can't bury transmission lines for any significant length:
https://www.datcllc.com/learn/underground-transmission/
BTW - transmission lines are the lines that go from power plants to the substations that distribute the power. Distribution lines go from the substation to your home.
Can we bury distribution lines? Yes, of course we can. We already have lots and lots of those all over the place. But keep in mind there are trade-offs.
First of all - the cost is ENORMOUS. We're talking anywhere from $500k / $3M per mile.
https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-the-u-s-bury-its-power-lines-104829#:~:text=Burying%20power%20lines%20costs%20roughly,this%20cost%20or%20triple%20it.
https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-the-u-s-bury-its-power-lines-104829#:~:text=Burying%20power%20lines%20costs%20roughly,this%20cost%20or%20triple%20it.
There is enormous fear that such costs would drive your utility bills WAY up. So while there is a huge amount of pain during a storm event - particularly big storm events like in 2017 and 2020, the pain of a high electric bill is every month.
There are other trade-offs. Underground lines are not without problems. And fixing underground outages takes a long time. So while you might avoid outages for the first years of an installation, as the underground lines age, you might get more frequent outages.
And those outages would take 5 - 10 times longer to repair. Sometimes it's hard to FIND an underground outage. Then you have to dig it up, splice it, re-energize it, and recover it.
This is by no means a settled argument. As utilities deal with climate change, this conversation will continue. Just keep in mind that undergrounding *WILL* cause rates to go up. https://www.tdworld.com/intelligent-undergrounding/article/20972693/its-time-for-utilities-to-reconsider-undergrounding-power-lines
Again, I don't speak for my employer. Again, no power outage is acceptable to me or to my colleagues. Again, the anger and frustration at being out of power for days is totally understandable, and I can't blame anyone for these feelings...
I just want us to have these conversations with eyes wide open, understanding that none of these decisions are simple, and people aren't making these decisions in bad faith.
