Sunday, February 19, 2012

Is Burying Power Lines in Durham a Pipe Dream?


We all know the drill - a gust of strong wind, an unexpected ice storm or a hurricane blow past our neighborhood and a few hours later the lights go dark. If we are lucky, we get the power back in the few hours, although sometimes the power does not come on until days later. This happens every year and while some neighborhoods are luckier than others, everyone has experienced power outages at some point. But it does not have to be this way! Duke University, for example, rarely if ever experienced a power failure no matter what the weather. This is because the University had the foresight to bury their power lines, thus removing a visual nuisance while at the same time ensuring a degree of protection from inclement weather. So why don't cities like Durham follow suit?

The obvious answer is money. It would be a tremendous immediate capital cost for the likes of Duke Energy to  move their electrical infrastructure underground. But the long-term savings will accrue overtime and inure to the customers rather that the energy company itself. In an interesting interview on NPR,   Ted Kurry, the director of at the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida discusses the possible cost-benefit analysis of such a move. 

In short: his conclusion is that none has undertaken the regions examination of the long-term benefits of burying power lines, mostly because energy company see no particular benefit to such an expensive move in the absence of government incentives. It is a short interview well worth a read.

In addition to inconvenience, the aesthetic effect of power line-manged trees is rarely attractive (see below). The visual impact of city pruning was well covered by Bullcityrising a few years ago, so I won't repeat the arguments therein. It is a worthwhile read.


2 comments:

  1. Diane Standaert referred me to your blog -- I'm so glad someone is keeping a Durham news blog alive! (after those of us who used to do it quit)

    What I keep wondering is if Duke Power could be convinced to get into the residential fibre business, and bury the power lines while laying residential fibre data service to households. This would, in my ideal world, kill two birds with one stone -- fix the sorry, sorry state of internet service in Durham, and get the power lines underground.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great to meet you Michael and thank you for reading the blog!

    I agree with you on both counts: internet service here is terrible and it would make so much sense for Duke Power to move the electric infrastructure underground if they are already investing into fiber. I am not optimistic however. Aside from regulatory issues that would inevitably arise if a state regulated monopoly were to try to branch into data service (I can only imagine the lawsuit brought by another erstwhile monopolist Time Warner), I seriously doubt they would bother investing into laying down underground cables.

    Right now, Timer Warner Cable elected to route their cable through the existing electrical grid. I see no reason why a fiber optic provider (Duke Power or otherwise) would want to invest in the infrastructure to put it underground anywhere outside downtown Durham (where they would be required to do so by zoning laws).

    When I lived in Washington, DC, I noticed with dismay that Verizon FIOS was digging trenches to lay down optical fiber while Dominion Power (the energy company) was happily decimating trees overhead. The two could never come to an agreement on fees.

    ReplyDelete