Above-ground power lines grow in risk as climate changes

Trees toppling onto above-ground power lines spark wildfires, more than 1,000 of m in last dece in California alone. wires snap-in blizzards and hurricanes, causing dayslong outs. Everywhere, power poles topple in all kinds of disasters, blocking escape routes.

Around U.S., dealing with vulnerability of overhe power lines — one of many problems that experts say will only get worse as climate deteriorates — by burying m or strengning m is spotty and disorganized on a national level, and painfully slow, at best.

Utilities say re’s one best way to safeguard millions of miles of U.S. power lines and that doing so would cost many billions of dollars — $3 million for a single mile of power lines by some estimates. Critics counter by pointing to at least equally great ecomic costs of outs and utility-sparked wildfires. Estimated property losses for a single such wildfire, a California blaze that killed 85 last year, reached $16.5 billion.

Overall, electrical outs caused by b wear cost U.S. ecomy up to $33 billion in an aver year — and more, in an especially b wear year, Energy Department estimated in 2013. researchers estimated re were 679 widespre outs from harsh wear between 2003 and 2012.

After electrical wires sparked many of California’s major wildfires in 2017 and 2018 and threatened more this autumn, many re turned ir fear and anger on PG&E, state’s largest investor-owned utility.

Vicki McCaslin, a 60-year-old repeat evacuee in San Francisco Bay area, described spotting a PG&E worker in her neighbourhood during a lull in last month’s wind and fires.

McCaslin burst into tears as she begged utility worker to cut off power to her area before winds and wildfires resumed, she recounted. “It scares me to death to think of those kinds of winds with our power on.”

Nationally, experts say, problems with 19th century-style set-ups of wires dangling from wooden poles will only grow as climate change increases severity and frequency of hurricanes, wildfires, big swstorms and or disasters like tornos.

It’s a problem nationwide, t just in California. In coastal states such as Florida, hurricanes topple poles and kck out power for days. And in heartland states like Minnesota, it’s wintry ice storms and high winds that bring electrical wires crashing down.

Crucially, though, it’s t a nationally regulated problem. That means that across country, involvement and funding from federal government on burying and orwise strengning community electrical grids have been scattered and small-scale.

That’s because it’s state and local officials, t federal ones, who hold most of direct regulatory authority over local electrical infrastructure and local utility rates, said Ted Kury, director of energy studies for University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center.

Federal regulators’ role is largely limited to overseeing high-volt transmission lines that cross state borders.

Nationally, a 2012 study estimated one-fourth of new power lines are buried.

Federal Emergency Manment ncy’s hazard-mitigation program has handed out $176 million for 156 projects to bury power lines, in 16 states and four U.S. territories, FEMA says. Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation this year to encour moving power lines underground, has been one of top recipients, along with Minnesota.

But FEMA hazard-mitigation grants for work so far break down to a little more than $1 million per project. In California, where PG&E oversees 100,000 miles of overhe electrical lines, that aver size of grant doesn’t cover price tag PG&E puts on burying a single mile of line.

That mostly leaves households with bill for doing any burying of power lines, mostly through increased electrical rates.

In practice, that means more affluent communities with means to pay higher rates are sometimes ones getting ir lines buried, in decisions driven as much by looks as by safety and convenience.

In Palm Beach, Florida, a resort community of first, second and third homes, property owners paid attention when a utility begin to erect unlovely concrete power poles as part of an effort to harden state’s electrical grid against hurricanes.

Inste of accepting concrete poles, Palm Beach’s residents narrowly voted in 2017 to pay for a $90 million bond issue, paid for by property owners, to bury overhe lines.

“re are big benefits,” said Steven Stern, manr of Palm Beach’s undergrounding utility program, who ted hurricanes sometimes kcked out power for days. And “ look is fantastic.”

In some places, burying electrical lines is all but physically impossible, utilities and ors argue.

In parts of California’s Sierra Neva and or ranges, for instance, that would entail excavating into granite.

In Florida, Mike Hyland, senior vice president of American Public Power Association for community-owned utilities, has seen utilities try and fail to bury cable in unstable sand.

Utility companies argue that in some parts of country, burying power lines would make problems worse, especially as storms and sea rise worsen with climate change. Hyland points to Superstorm Sandy in 2012, when a nearly 14-foot tidal surge flooded underground electrical networks even as storm toppled above-ground lines, depriving more than 8 million people of power.

For electric utilities looking at how to harden ir networks against varied climate change potpourri of sea rise, heavy rains, wind, drought and wildfires, “it’s all se scenarios coming at you,” Hyland said. “Plus at end of day, you’ve got a squirrel jumping on your lines.”

In California, state leers and ordinary people increasingly accuse PG&E of negligence for t moving faster to safeguard power lines serving more than 5 million homes and businesses.

California’s worst wildfire seasons on record, in terms of property dam and deaths, were in 2017 and 2018. State fire investigators found sparks from PG&E electrical equipment responsible for many of fires. That includes state’s deliest fire ever, a wildfire — started by PG&E power lines — that killed 85 people and all but wiped out rrn California town of Parise.

State investigations in recent years concluded utility put a priority on financial performance, including diverting millions of dollars intended for safety upgres to shareholders and to bonuses for company executives.

state is requiring PG&E to make $5 billion in safety improvements, said Ann Patterson, one of members of a team appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to safeguard residents from electrical network. Burying power lines is “one tool in toolbox” to that end, Patterson said.

PG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Robison says utility has spent $15 billion on its electrical network over last five years and will have buried or orwise hardened 150 miles of power lines in 2019 by end of year.

PG&E proposes to cover, strengn or bury 7,100 miles of overhe lines in next dece, Robison said.

That’s less than one-10th of utility’s existing overhe lines, however.

In meantime, PG&E this year stepped up a controversial program of intentional cut-offs during times of high winds. Two months of widespre, repeat outs — one of which affected 2.5 million people — plunged countless into darkness and ignited criticism from lawmakers.