Why Most Power Lines Aren’t Underground

Learn about the challenges underground power lines face and the reasons we choose to still have above ground power lines in some places.

References:
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[IncurablyCurious]

Thank you for dealing with the loud background music on my early videos. It took me six videos to to realize I wasn't actually lowering it during editing, so it came out as loud as my dialogue.

[pawnslinger]

30 years ago, they buried all the power lines in my area. I cannot tell you the last time we had a power failure.... they used to occur on a regular basis. I am very happy with my buried power lines, well worth the cost IMO.

[martinmajewski]

In Germany, most of our powerlines are underground. Only in old rural areas, you'll still find them overground. But what you'll also see: obsolete powerline connectors on older houses' walls. The point is that you don't need to replace the entire infrastructure in one go. Just don't install new powerlines the old way. If renovation or expansion is needed, do it underground and over a long period of time, you've got rid of the old overground powerlines.

[alexandernevalainen]

Most of the powerlines here in my area in Sweden are buried since years ago and power outages have drastically dropped to maybe two or three in a year compared to every time wind picks up or there is heavy snowfall, a tree falls over the line, it would take many hours to a whole day for the power to return. what happens now is if lightning strikes near it, it just trips a breaker and after about 30 mins the power is back on, this happened one time last year and the other times where the company doing maintenance witch took an hour or four.

[Intercoaster]

I spent the first 36 years of my life in another country where electric supply cables were located underground in urban areas and outages were very rare indeed. Then I came to America and was astonished to see so many services strung up overhead on poles in the same type of areas. The problem goes back to original electrification in the US. It was done on the cheap to maximize profit and as the narrator of the video rightly states, the cost to put it all underground now would be prohibitive. One wonders what the cost to society of outages is on, say, an annual basis.

[loganmccarthy]

I work as a vegetation inspector here in California and I did want to bring up the point of the cost for "pruning the trees". Since you made it sound like it was not a big cost. For us it takes about a week for a team of about 6 people to section of our county at roughly 15 miles a person for that week. Each of them can be payed ultimately by the power company between $19-$25/hr for 40hr/week. After that you have the cost of the tree crews to do the work for about $15, 000 per day for a 3 man crew. Plus any inspectors coming afterwards to make sure the job was done correctly and the tree crews didn't miss anything. Those inspectors they get payed between $30-$40/hr or up to $60 if they have a degree in electrical engineering systems.

So that's $237, 120 for the first inspectors $5, 460, 000 for the tree crews and $62, 400 for the last inspector for the lowest amount you could pay each year for a total of $5, 759, 520. This is the bare minimum it would cost per year to patrol and clear the lines in each county of which there are 58 in California alone. This doesn't include any bosses, clerks, office space, overtime, or equipment needed for these jobs to function. And all of this is if they people working are from that area. If they are from a few county's over or out of state they have to have lodging until they move on to somewhere else or back home.

So saying its just a matter of pruning trees along the lines is a little disingenuous. And for those curious that's $460, 761, 600 over the course of the 80 years to maintain that network in an area if prices stayed the same for that time. Which obviously prices aren't stagnant. If anyone has general questions about what I do I'm happy to answer them.

[Zoza]

All power cables in The Netherlands are underground, this is primarily a safety meassure, and they also know where these power cables are buried..
But we pay also a lot more taxes for these and other maintenances.

[Hvitserk]

Here in Denmark, both electricity and communication lines (fiber) are buried underground throughout the country. Only the most powerful high-voltage lines are on masts. In Norway, on the other hand, both power and communication lines are mostly on masts. The difference is that in Norway there are bedrock, while in Denmark there are loose masses. The cost difference for burying cables is formidable, but in new development areas, the cables are also buried in Norway. The reason is the climate changes which lead to more violent weather and thus more damage to the cables that are on masts.

[beansgas]

6:38 Correction. The purpose of "guy wires" does not necessary add strength to the poles. The primary purpose is stabilize the pole. It counters pulling force from the electrical lines. If the "guy wire" was not used then over time the pole either start will lean or will bend in the direction that it is being pulled.
Great overview.

[emperormerlinos]

The Netherlands is the only nation the world that doesn’t have a single power line or phone pole above the ground. Only the big steel high voltage ones are above the ground, thus (in my opinion) make it the cleanest looking country in the world!

[yousifkenick]

I have spent my three-decade career managing and consulting on mega-construction projects in both hemispheres of the globe. A few years ago I helped install multiple three-phase, 400kV (400, 000 volt) transmission circuits underground for many kilometers in a very harsh environment. We buried them in precast concrete troughs filled with cbs (concrete based sand) as an extra insulator. This allowed a far greater voltage will less line-loss than the typical tower-suspended, air-cooled transmission cables we were replacing, and made future repairs easier since it can quite easily be removed with just a blast of water. The cables weighed 55 kilograms per meter and came in half kilometer drums (which means we installed a joint box every half kilometer). Then we placed a concrete lid over all the troughs to prevent digging animals and future construction excavations from disturbing the cables (at that voltage, they were not direct buried). The cables were kept a uniform distance apart to prevent cross interference from the different phases (even in the joint boxes), and a wire was installed which monitors the entire run of cable from a single location at the power generation station and pinpoints the near exact place where any fault or line leakage occurs. And the electric rates in this country are far below what I was paying in New Hampshire, USA where downed trees regularly caused extended power outages during hurricane season and winter Noreasters.

[Sereomontis]

I don't know how common power blackouts are everywhere else, but I've been living in the same rural town for most of my 32 years of life, and I can count the number of blackouts I've experienced on one hand.
So for me, it absolutely would not be worth doubling the price of electricity to prevent something that only happens for a few hours once or twice a decade.

[TheTrophyMerchant]

Was just gonna leave after finishing the video, saw how criminally underrated the channel was, subbed. Thanks for the content.

[larrycurran]

Interesting reading about some negative comments on underground lines. I live in a community that started in 1978 and finished building out around 1998. They buried all line from the beginning as each section we started. I have lived here 24 years and have experienced two outages. One was a problem at a transfer station during the night that lasted seconds or minutes effecting things like electric clocks. The other was a planned outage when the power company had to replace a gigantic transformer. We were out for around 1/2 hour while they hooked up portable temporary transformers and another 1 /2 hour when rhe new transformer was hooked up. During that time a major underground trunk kine was also replaced in the community. I've been through 90 mph wind storms, flooding rainstorms, scorching and freezing weather and never lost power. The person who worked for a power company having more problems with below than above ground lines leads me to believe his company practiced some problematic methods of instalation or cheaped out on materials. One minor blip outage since 1978 shows underground lines can be best when done properly,

[chaslaspata]

I’m an estimator for an electrical contractor and you forgot to mention that wire sizing has to be increased when running underground compared to overhead due to insulation and heating or wires

[majikslim]

it amazes me. In Oklahoma our last ice storm cost more in repairs then the cost of placing line underground. they still wanted us to pay double. It would have paid for itself in one single ice storm.

[egyptianjoe]

it is funny that in egypt we rarely have above ground power cables in residential areas.
the only times it happen is when people build near pre-existent towers, the big boi towers that normally run through the desert.

[mulekickhandmadeguitars]

I worked on an electric power line crew for 39 years with a large energy company. Our company owns and maintains thousands of miles of both overhead and underground electric distribution lines, with about 1/3rd of our lines buried underground. Approximately 2/3rds of our outages were on our underground distribution, rather than our overhead distribution lines. Restoring power on underground took twice as long as on our overhead lines. There are actually far more natural negative forces in the earth that cause damage to underground cables, than on overhead.

[zakmatew]

Yet we spent for the war in Afghanistan $2.19X10^12 for 20 years which is $300 million per day! Imagine if we used the money at home.

[egutierrez]

For perspective, to convert to an underground facility, you’d need to convert cabletv plus telephone service too as most of the telephone poles are technically owned by the power company.