Strategic Approaches to Grid Modernization
SAFETY
Undergrounding: A Resilient Future
Strategic Approaches to Grid Modernization
By Todd Razor
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Safety, reliability and cost are at the center of a national conversation being framed around large-scale infrastructure upgrades to strengthen and modernize America’ s aging power grid.
The U. S. electric system has about 6 million miles of line and approximately 180 million power poles. According to the U. S. Department of Energy( DOE), the entire system has exposure and increasing vulnerability to adverse or extreme weather conditions, the cause of most power outages.
In addition, when live wires contact vegetation, wildfires can occur. The domino effect and resulting consequences can be severe.
Undergrounding Cost and Benefits
When it comes to enhancing grid resilience, burying high-voltage power cables underground has been identified as one solution to reduce outages and ignition risks.
Recent studies indicate that underground lines outperform overhead lines in reliability and wildfire risk mitigation. Florida Power & Light Company( FPL)
Telecom & Utility Construction | Spring 2025
found that they have six times fewer outages with underground lines during severe weather and can perform 50 % better day to day.
Pacific Gas & Electric( PG & E), found that undergrounding can reduce the risk of wildfire ignition from electrical equipment by approximately 98 %.
The price tag can be relatively high, however, and numerous complex variables impact the cost and feasibility of long underground pulls in both rural and urban environments.
Various terrain types, such as rocky soil, mud or environments with existing infrastructure like conduits and pipes and other obstacles, increase the potential for cable entanglement, damage or misalignment. Not all locations are ideal contenders and areas prone to flooding, for example, must be ruled out.
Where undergrounding is deemed necessary, cost-effectiveness, high speed and safety are being emphasized.
Taking a Smart Approach In 2024, the DOE’ s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy announced $ 34 million in funding for a dozen programs to develop advanced grid-strengthening technologies, aimed at bringing down costs and speeding development.
Regulators in California recently approved a long-term program allowing major utilities to propose 10-year plans designed to enhance the state’ s electric grid and expedite moving power lines underground.
In hurricane-prone Florida, FPL is using sources such as 100-year floodplain data and records of previous outages to determine which areas and neighborhoods should be prioritized for transition.
According to PG & E, expanding the electric system underground in areas with elevated wildfire risk helps reduce fires, improve reliability and mitigate the need for safety-related power outages. The added benefits of undergrounding power lines extend to improved air and water quality.
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency research shows that wildland fires degrade water quality by causing soil erosion, increasing flood risks and mobilizing contaminants, including industrial