AEP considers burying lines

[heironymouspasparagus]

PG&E power lines are found to have caused the Camp Fire and the utility declares bankruptcy.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/business/pge-bankruptcy-wildfires/index.html

This is really bad for everyone involved.   

The article mentioned one downed power pole riddled with bullets - I have seen power poles in NE OK that were shot so many times I wondered how they could be standing.  Talk about an easy "terrorist" target...

[patric]

This is really bad for everyone involved.   
The article mentioned one downed power pole riddled with bullets - I have seen power poles in NE OK that were shot so many times I wondered how they could be standing.  Talk about an easy "terrorist" target...

Placing power lines underground is an expensive way to reduce fire danger

Experts have said that despite the heavy costs, burying power lines in areas most susceptible to winds would provide a huge margin of safety.
San Diego has been ahead of the curve, placing thousands of miles of power lines underground over the last few decades. Part of the motivation has been aesthetic, clearing ocean views for residents. But it has also helped reduce fire risk.

In 2016, San Diego Gas & Electric began an ambitious plan to make power lines in the Cleveland National Forest more resistant to fire. That included burying 30 miles of lines underground in sensitive areas.

"It's almost 18th century technology, in some ways," then-Malibu Mayor Rick Mullen told state lawmakers last year about overhead lines. "Let's make the investment to make the system durable."
"I hope this is a wake-up [call] to them and other utilities proving that we need to value infrastructure. I just hope this will result in a cultural change for them."

[Red Arrow]

Placing power lines underground is an expensive way to reduce fire danger

Experts have said that despite the heavy costs, burying power lines in areas most susceptible to winds would provide a huge margin of safety.
San Diego has been ahead of the curve, placing thousands of miles of power lines underground over the last few decades. Part of the motivation has been aesthetic, clearing ocean views for residents. But it has also helped reduce fire risk.

In 2016, San Diego Gas & Electric began an ambitious plan to make power lines in the Cleveland National Forest more resistant to fire. That included burying 30 miles of lines underground in sensitive areas.

"It's almost 18th century technology, in some ways," then-Malibu Mayor Rick Mullen told state lawmakers last year about overhead lines. "Let's make the investment to make the system durable."
"I hope this is a wake-up [call] to them and other utilities proving that we need to value infrastructure. I just hope this will result in a cultural change for them."

Can high voltage main transmission lines be buried?

[heironymouspasparagus]

Can high voltage main transmission lines be buried?

Yes.  Very pricey.   Just a question of capital expenditure.  Good time to add wire to reduce power losses, too.


The big transmission line in Broken Arrow (looks like about a 161 kv trunk to me, but not completely sure) went down for about 1/2 mile.  Metal and wood poles.  About 500 ft east of friends in Broken Arrow - we were visiting during that storm and it was a wild ride.  The house across the street, and several others around there, from them lost a tree, and power was out for about 8 hours - they were lucky!  That tornado didn't quite make it all the way to the ground, otherwise, there would have been some serious issues.  As it was, lots of houses damaged, but no one seriously hurt!   Could easily have been a Moore type event - the damage path as it happened was hundreds of feet wide through those neighborhoods from Aspen to Elm!

[patric]

Can high voltage main transmission lines be buried?

Yes.  After the 07/08 ice storm when AEP was asked what it would cost to bury *ALL* lines, the cost of cross-country transmission lines greatly inflated the price tag (when most people anticipated AEP would only focus on distribution lines and "drops" to the homes).

Most of the failures then were aerial lines among the urban tree canopy, even though many simply failed from the weight of ice on the wire alone without the help of any tree limbs. Nevertheless, tree butchering was touted as the solution.

Its interesting to re-read this discussion from the beginning, when AEP made it look like they were champing at the bit to bury lines but were "surprised" and "discouraged" at "discovering" the cost.

[patric]

(AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric plans to bury 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) of its power lines in an effort to prevent its fraying grid from sparking wildfires when electrical equipment collides with millions of trees and other vegetation across drought-stricken California.

The daunting project announced Wednesday aims to bury about 10% of PG&E's distribution and transmission lines at a projected cost of $15 billion to as much as $30 billion, based on how much the process currently costs. The utility believes it will find ways to keep the final bill at the lower end of those estimates. Most of the costs will likely be shouldered by PG&E customers, whose electricity rates are already among the highest in the U.S.

PG&E stepped up its safety commitment just days after informing regulators a 70-foot (23-meter) pine tree that toppled on one of its power lines ignited a major fire in Butte County, the same rural area about 145 miles (233 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco where another fire sparked by its equipment in 2018 killed more than 80 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

The backlash to PG&E's potential liability for the Dixie Fire prompted the company's recently hired CEO, Patricia "Patti" Poppe, to unveil the plan for underground lines several months earlier than she said she planned.

Previous PG&E regimes have staunchly resisted plans to bury long stretches of power lines because of the massive expense involved.

But Poppe told reporters on Wednesday that she quickly realized after she joined PG&E in January that moving lines underground is the best way to protect both the utility and the 16 million people who rely on it for power.

"It's too expensive not to do it. Lives are on the line," Poppe told reporters.

PG&E said only that burying the lines will take several years. However, getting the job done within the next decade will require a quantum leap. In the few areas where PG&E has already been burying power lines, it has been completing about 70 miles (123 kilometers) annually.

PG&E expects to eventually be able to bury more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of power lines annually, said its chief operating officer, Adam Wright. While Wright likened the project to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II, Poppe invoked President John F. Kennedy's 1962 pledge for the U.S. to land on the moon.

PG&E's path to this point has been strewn with death and destruction.

After previous leaders allowed its equipment to fall into disrepair in a apparent attempt to boost profits and management bonuses, the utility's grid was blamed for igniting a series of devastating wildfires in 2017 and 2018 that prompted the company to file for bankruptcy in 2019.

The biggest fire, in Butte County, wiped out the entire town of Paradise and resulted in PG&E pleading guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter last year just weeks before it emerged from one of the most complex cases in U.S. history.

As part of its bankruptcy, PG&E set up a $13.5 billion trust to pay victims of its past wildfires, but that fund is facing a roughly $2 billion shortfall because half its money is supposed to come from company stock that has been a market laggard.

Since getting out of bankruptcy, PG&E also has been rebuked by California power regulators and a federal judge overseeing its criminal probation for breaking promises to reduce the dangers posed by trees near its power lines. The utility has also been charged with another round of fire-related crimes that it denies committing.

Poppe insisted things are getting better this year under a plan that calls for PG&E to spend $1.4 billion removing more than 300,000 trees and trimming another 1.1 million. But she conceded the utility is "not making enough progress" since it's only a fraction of that 8 million trees within striking distance of its power lines.

But she also defended PG&E's handling of the tree that may have caused the Dixie Fire and its response. The tree looked healthy and was about 40 feet (12 meters) from power lines, she said, making it a low-risk danger.

When a PG&E troubleshooter was sent out to inspect a potential problem, he noticed the tree had fallen and may have started a fire in a treacherous area that he tried to put out before firefighters arrived.

"His efforts can be called nothing less than heroic," Poppe said.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/national/pg-e-will-spend-at-least-15-billion-burying-power-lines/article_d77521e4-3f9f-525f-8e12-f03d09f28939.html

[dbacksfan 2.0]

PG&E is only about 30+ years late on doing something. So much of PG&E's transmission lines in northern California have not had the ROW cleared under them in about that long because of the battle between the environmentalist and PG&E over clearing ROW or lack of clearing.

I spent a lot of time traveling through northern CA from essentially Sacramento to the Oregon border, and from I-5 to the coast from 2011 to 2018 and you could see the potential disasters. There is so much debris in the forests that in places the piles of dead vegetation is over 10 feet high.

Add into that all the deferred maintenance by PG&E and it was just a matter of time.

Here is an example along Highway 101 just north of Willits CA. Can you spot the power pole and electric lines? This is common along this highway from Santa Rosa to the Oregon border. (according to Google Street, this is from June 2019)

https://goo.gl/maps/AX6xNLCWnv6s5Vnb8

In this view you can actually see the transformer near the top of the pole.

https://goo.gl/maps/xmTsiSZmUEkD3ZFF9

https://goo.gl/maps/ByysnLWXvq8F7ui29

[TheArtist]

Went to Denver to visit my brother and his family a couple weeks ago.  They actually lived in a suburb, and we went around Denver and in other nearby suburbs. I noticed how things looked so much nicer there. Took a few minutes to figure out why.

1. No tall signs on poles. Most were pedestal or monument signs.
2. Very few if any electrical poles along the streets, especially none along main corridors.

Returning to Tulsa was like stepping back in time or into a 3rd world country.

We work so hard to try to lure companies to Tulsa and you just wonder what people think when they get here and see how trashy the signage and electrical lines look, yet we here have mostly just adjusted to the way things are and do not notice. First impressions are important though.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Went to Denver to visit my brother and his family a couple weeks ago.  They actually lived in a suburb, and we went around Denver and in other nearby suburbs. I noticed how things looked so much nicer there. Took a few minutes to figure out why.

1. No tall signs on poles. Most were pedestal or monument signs.
2. Very few if any electrical poles along the streets, especially none along main corridors.

Returning to Tulsa was like stepping back in time or into a 3rd world country.

We work so hard to try to lure companies to Tulsa and you just wonder what people think when they get here and see how trashy the signage and electrical lines look, yet we here have mostly just adjusted to the way things are and do not notice. First impressions are important though.

Phoenix is the same way. Near the intersection in the Google Street link below, there are 14 restaurants, an AMC 18 screen dine in theater, Target, Office Depot, Pet Smart, Albertson's, Walgreens, three banks, furniture store, and a Marriott Resort.

https://goo.gl/maps/yFuuH6HK8uBRXJG79

[heironymouspasparagus]

Went to Denver to visit my brother and his family a couple weeks ago.  They actually lived in a suburb, and we went around Denver and in other nearby suburbs. I noticed how things looked so much nicer there. Took a few minutes to figure out why.

1. No tall signs on poles. Most were pedestal or monument signs.
2. Very few if any electrical poles along the streets, especially none along main corridors.

Returning to Tulsa was like stepping back in time or into a 3rd world country.

We work so hard to try to lure companies to Tulsa and you just wonder what people think when they get here and see how trashy the signage and electrical lines look, yet we here have mostly just adjusted to the way things are and do not notice. First impressions are important though.

Go to New England some time and drive around.  Couple of things will jump out at you.

1.  They know how to drive!  Watch carefully at the entrance ramps and see how everyone "gets" how to merge!

2.  And much bigger, more jarring difference - look for litter on the roads.  We literally live in the middle of a garbage dump, everywhere we go.  They don't.

[SXSW]

Went to Denver to visit my brother and his family a couple weeks ago.  They actually lived in a suburb, and we went around Denver and in other nearby suburbs. I noticed how things looked so much nicer there. Took a few minutes to figure out why.

1. No tall signs on poles. Most were pedestal or monument signs.
2. Very few if any electrical poles along the streets, especially none along main corridors.

Returning to Tulsa was like stepping back in time or into a 3rd world country.

We work so hard to try to lure companies to Tulsa and you just wonder what people think when they get here and see how trashy the signage and electrical lines look, yet we here have mostly just adjusted to the way things are and do not notice. First impressions are important though.

The old parts of Denver have the advantage of having alleys where the power lines run instead of along the street.  The more suburban parts of Denver look more like Tulsa.  And go to Dallas, Houston, KC, Austin, Nashville, etc and they all have the same power line problem so definitely not unique to Tulsa just how it is in this part of the country.  I would love to see them buried in our pedestrian districts but expecting them everywhere is unrealistic

[patric]

The old parts of Denver have the advantage of having alleys where the power lines run instead of along the street.  The more suburban parts of Denver look more like Tulsa.  And go to Dallas, Houston, KC, Austin, Nashville, etc and they all have the same power line problem so definitely not unique to Tulsa just how it is in this part of the country.  I would love to see them buried in our pedestrian districts but expecting them everywhere is unrealistic

I can see it being required for all new construction.

[patric]

After Pacific Gas & Electric equipment sparked a massive fire that burned much of Paradise, Calif., and killed 86 people in 2018, the utility vowed a safety campaign aimed at preventing similar disasters.

PG&E said it would bury some power lines snaking through Northern California forest land, significantly reducing the risk of wildfires caused when winds damage equipment. Among the power lines set to be buried was a 10-mile stretch that may have started this year's destructive Dixie fire, now the second largest in California history.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-10/pge-power-line-dixie-fire-scheduled-to-be-buried-underground

This is not that far removed from our own situation, yet its not even on our radar.

[swake]

I can see it being required for all new construction.

All new construction does have underground service and has had for more than 20 years. But the feeder lines to the neighborhoods are still above ground.

[heironymouspasparagus]

They won't even put one extra wire on each conductor to reduce losses from more than 30% to 15%, so why would they bury lines?