Homeowners across the United States are becoming more and more familiar with the dreaded experience of losing power for an extended time – whether it is from a blizzard in New England, a wildfire in California, or a hurricane in Florida. Each event invariably prompts the question, ‘Why aren’t the utility lines underground?’
The good news is that more and more communities are burying their utility lines, a process called ‘undergrounding.’
Good Reasons to Bury Power Lines
There are numerous factors behind the trend toward undergrounding. Wildfire prevention is one such factor, given that overhead power lines are known to have ignited destructive wildfires in California (Los Angeles, Paradise), Hawaii (Lahaina), and Texas (Smokehouse Creek) in recent years. California has mandated the state’s big utilities must develop 10-year underground plans to address wildfire risk.
Hurricane and storm resilience are factors in support of undergrounding.
Strong storms can bring down trees that in turn take out power lines. Florida Power & Light found that underground neighborhood power lines performed 5 to 14 times better than overhead lines during the 2024 hurricane season, which included three hurricanes.
Grid modernization is another factor cited in the need for undergrounding.
“The U.S. power grid is simultaneously reaching the end of its design life and facing unprecedented demand growth,” according to Utility Pipe Supply, experts in underground construction materials and tools. “AI-driven data centers, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and industrial electrification are driving what industry analysts call a once-in-a-century infrastructure buildout.”
Other factors include the improved aesthetics of no poles or wires, safety considerations to reduce risk from downed power lines, and decreased time and money spent to trim vegetation around power lines.
One House Grabs an Opportunity
At the TOH TV Walpole project, homeowners Dan and Jill found themselves in an unexpected situation that enabled them to underground their power lines. The key factors? Their original overhead service from a pole in the street to their garage had to be disconnected when they demoed the garage, and they fortunately had another utility pole in their backyard, a short distance from the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) they were building.
“I wanted to do it because I saw an opportunity to not have anything connected above ground,” says Dan. “It was a combined effort to put everything related to the utilities underground, not only the electrical service but also our propane tank, which is buried near the house.” After receiving approval from their local electrical service provider, the homeowners worked with their electrician to dig a trench and bury the conduit.
Widespread Adoption Still Slow
Most homeowners, however, find themselves in a situation beyond their control, where the power lines in their entire town or neighborhood are either underground or overhead. Even with all the positive factors in support of undergrounding, widespread adoption is slow and there is a big difference between new and existing neighborhoods.
On the plus side, in many places across the country, new residential and commercial developments are required to have underground utility lines—for safety, storm resilience, and grid reasons.
However, converting an existing community-wide overhead power line situation to one underground is much more difficult primarily due to the cost of a large-scale project.
“Current cost benchmarks for overhead-to-underground conversion range from $3 million to $5 million per overhead pole-mile,” notes a report by Kimley-Horn, experts in engineering, design, and infrastructure planning.
Long-term Financial Considerations
That cost, however, is increasingly seen as a worthwhile long-term investment given the toll that loss of power takes and the proven superiority of underground lines during storms. An analysis by Florida Power & Light found that the savings from undergrounding can approach hundreds of millions of dollars for major storms.
Other studies suggest that co-undergrounding—burying both electric and broadband internet lines together—is not only more cost-effective than replacing them separately, it also pays for itself in the cost benefit of avoiding outages. The benefits from avoiding outages are based on factors like “spoiled food, damaged home appliances, missed remote work hours and increased use of backup power sources,” according to research by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Innovative Approach Along the Beach
To fund overhead-to-underground conversions, some communities turn to a combination of disaster relief funds, federal grants, and private money. For example, in 2017, one community in Rhode Island worked with federal money, non-profit partners, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the scenic landscape on a stretch of road along Middletown, RI’s Sachuest Beach. That stretch of road had experienced downed power lines during Tropical Storm Sandy, and the road itself was eaten away by the storm’s surge. Motivated by both aesthetics and storm resilience, the community ultimately removed more than 100 utility poles, thereby preserving a beautiful vista and also improving the storm resilience of the coastal infrastructure.
Thinking Ahead: The Future of Undergrounding Powerlines
As communities across the country increasingly deal with the power outages related to storms and wildfires, local voices can often help in the decision making needed to push for undergrounding. If residents organize and ask their town to commission a study, there can be shared brainstorming on ways to fund an overhead-to-underground conversion. Dig once is another popular approach, meaning that an undergrounding project gets tied to a road construction or infrastructure upgrade where the road will already be opened.
New residential developments are often mandated to bury utilities, but the progress in existing communities may only happen little by little in cases such as downtown beautification projects in historic districts, road reconstruction projects, economic development zones, or storm-vulnerable corridors. Overall, the trend for undergrounding is happening, but slowly.
