It’s incredibly expensive

Some towns require all new lines to be buried.

Maybe because it's easier and cheaper to go over mountains and water.

You definitely see it a lot more in new developments

Money

Generally 10 times more expensive to bury. Typically $75-100/ft for poles vs $750-1000/ft to bury for main lines.

GMP has already set aside $10 mil for Emerald Ash Borer remediation. Cutting ash trees from right of ways.

By that logic why doesn't California bury its transmission lines?

Its incredibly incredibly incredibly expensive and would be a massive undertaking.

Stowe just buried all its power lines on Main Street. It was a huge 2 year project and was super expensive. Is it really nice now? Yeah. Is it realistic to expect every line in vt to be buried? Absolutely not and even stowe still has a majority of its lines not downtown on towers.

Rocks. Large Rocks. Bedrock. Rocks.

Yes, PG&E in CA started finally burying the lines after they burnt down so many towns, killed people and animals and had so many lawsuits.

trust me California has rocks and bedrock lol. look up “high desert California”

Thats good that they are finally doing it.

It looks like its a 15 billion dollar undertaking though which is why it hasn't been considered for vt.

If forest fires become a consideration here we should probably look into it.

it’s definitely more expensive to have to annually fix these things and send out the manpower from other agencies to deal with the emergencies. Not sure why Vermont hasn’t gotten on the ball yet either.

Keyword: started. Major utility in the most populated state in the USA has just begun burying their utilities and we are supposed to be surprised the 49th most populated state hasn't done it yet?

Yes and look how expensive it is to bury those lines.

yeah except they had to make that payment once, not yearly, multiple times a year.

Makes sense in a place that is all about "place" like that.

Generally only makes sense for densely populated areas or new suburban developments where they are already digging everything. Otherwise the cost is spread amongst too few people to be worthwhile.

It would be interesting to see the cost/ROI over time of not burying vs burying. Perhaps someone can figure out a better and cheaper way in the future.

Money for sure. And as one dude said on here it’s easier to go thru the terrain vs dig underground. Mayyybe in Northern VT (St. Albans area) since it’s flatter terrain and less rocky.

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Frost heaves? I'm sure modern practice is to bury lines in flexible jacketing and address the ingress into buildings better, but I've worked in a situation where buried conduit was clearly compromised at two sites, causing water (and mud) to pour into multiple buildings. That said, my neighborhood has buried electrical mains.

Grafton (pop 650?) has also buried most of its in town power lines

California buries it's power lines not because of the cost but because the cost point was decades of fires caused by faulty power lines. The northeast may start doing that in the future, with how uncertain climate change makes things

This isn't California, In cali, that downed line could burn counties and towns, that's expensive for the power companies insurance, here, it's just a few thousand people losing power, cheaper to fix it when it breaks

OP you’re the one that brought up climate change, bearing powerlines wouldn’t just be expensive but it would generate a great deal of pollution. All that digging is done by gas and diesel powered vehicles. Plus I looked it up, the old above ground lines cannot be repurposed for underground usage since they give off heat so you’re talking about scrapping all the powerlines in the state. Yes it would get recycled but recycling isn’t free, removing, transporting and recycling the lines burns fossil fuels. So your plan to future proof for climate change worsens climate change.

The recent statewide power outages we’re wild and yes most of it could’ve been avoided with buried power lines. But I kept track of the outages and 99% of the state had its power restored within three days, my house took two. And talking to people have been here longer than me this doesn’t seem like a common problem where half of the houses in the state lose power. This state doesn’t have a lot of money and burying powerlines cost several times more than above ground powerlines so that expense is going to get passed on to the average citizen to solve for an in frequent and very short term problem.

Vermont doesn’t seem to have a lot of forest fires because our forests are still green, West Coast forests are tinder boxes and have been browning for decades so fires are a constant problem. Another issue is the massive development in areas that are naturally prone to wildfires and where things are worsened by people being there.

you might want to look up the GDP of California and it's tax base and compare it to Vermont

I typically see a range of 3-5x more for buried vs overhead, but these numbers are in the right ballpark (btw $100/ft works out to $528k per mile). In my town in MA, we used to be able to install underground for $1-2M per mile (mid 2010's), but it's probably crept up since then.

And because Vermont is rural, infrastructure that is network-based is expensive per capita (many miles to cover, not so many people). My neighbor in VT 2 doors down got a quote for running electrical service (which currently stops at the house in between ours); it was something like $100k. So, he decided to go off the grid: solar, small wind turbine, batteries. It was cheaper.

You ever dig a hole in Vermont?

>it’s definitely more expensive to have to annually fix these things and send out the manpower from other agencies to deal with the emergencies.

Is it now? Please tell me where you got this definitely true fact.

The rockefellers paid for it to be done in Woodstock I was told.

Historical areas grants plus old money plus the middle of town isn’t completely a slab of granite.

You ever have to deal with a fault in the ground? It’s about 1000% harder to deal with and identify.

You clearly have never tried to dig a hole in Vermont.

In the 70s Rockefeller paid to have the lines buried/removed from the main streets in Woodstock

Did you mean “Why doesn’t Vermont Barre its power lines?”

Ha, ha, ha! People think all you gotta do is dig a trench and drop the wire off the poles, not quite as easy as that. Cost varies wildly from rural to city, but fact is, where ever you are, it ain't cheap! And you're right, everybody winds up paying.

Public utilities are what keeps housing expensive. People are funny, they get accustomed to lights, heat, fresh water and sewers and of course internet and cell phone.

I was an early investor in Plug Power 25 yrs ago. They are a hydrogen fuel cell developer. Their goal was to build fuel cells that could power a 3br 1200 sq' house with a 1.5kw hydrogen fuel cell. The goal was, "The size of a washing machine price $5,000." (never quite got there. more like $25k-$50k powering remote cell towers and now indoor forklifts)

Anyway, off grid electric power technology would do wonders to open up huge amounts of land currently not financially suitable for development. Would reduce housing crisis dramatically in VT and across the country. I'm still waiting for this paradigm shift.

Interesting re: Plug Power; I live a couple miles from their electrolyzer facility in MA. And my company has looked at their stuff for forklifts; that's a pretty good use case for them.

My understanding as well growing up.

I don't agree that it's a short-term problem. Historical data doesn't mean much given climate change. I agree that burying power lines isn't a cheap or simple solution, and I'm not arguing for it. However, it would be reasonable to expect storms and power outages to get worse.

Money money money mon-ey…MON-EY! -The O’Jays

Lasers.

Even considering the cost of labor to upkeep and repair overhead lines?

You can't reuse the lines because the underground lines require insulation that the above ground lines do not. Additionally you must have redundancy because it takes weeks to replace under ground lines vs hours for overhead lines.

For any rural lines, If you do a good job of cutting all the trees near the powerlines it's much cheaper and minimizes customer down time. There really isn't anything else you can do. The cost of burying the lines per household is too high if you have to go 20 miles down a dirt road to farmer Fred. Like a million a household high.

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Not well versed on the subject, but yes. A friend of mines parent, a linesman, explained to me that our industry for line repair and electric in general - New England and NY/PA - provides a lot of help to other states down south that don’t have the same infrastructure or money and get hit even worse by storms

Waterbury did too. Looks nice.

There’s lots of other shit buried underground too which makes it more difficult.

That 'insulation' is called a dielectric.

The dielectric is sulfur hexafluoride. You can watch some amusing videos about what happens when people breathe it in.

Unfortunately, its, perhaps, the strongest greenhouse gas known to man and resides in the atmosphere for 3200 years.

That material should be banned on Earth. On Mars it'd be a desirable terra forming gas. Here? its a forever nightmare compound.

Too much "ledge".

In other regions, that is not true. Horizontal auger rigs can do some amazing stuff in clay and sand. In the NE, we have "ledge" and boulders to go through. Really hard to do.

I couldn't find any SF6, but if you have a source I guess post it. https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/understanding-underground-electric-transmission-cables

Rocks, large rocks, and—along forest roads—root systems of trees that are challenged enuf by wet weather. We need our trees holding the roadsides together.

I've been saying this my whole life. I do not understand why this isn't a national initiative, honestly. Even the substations should be underground. The only reason it's not being done is because 'it would cost too much' (they say as they have to pay out hundreds of billions in repair and replacement costs after each next disaster).

Expensive + devastating to the environment.

Even if you use existing underground utility trenches like where the plumbing and water lines are running, it is still expensive. They have to be sealed from moisture and insulated. The lines put out heat which has to be dealt with more aggressively underground. The seals complicate any repair and require more expensive components and I believe they may not last as long underground, but not sure of that. I read up on it and that was some of the takeaway. Various articles said it was five to 10 times more expensive

We directional bore in NE, and even install power lines via this method in CT.

And yes, ledge.

And yes, expensive.

And underground would still be installed and maintained by lineman. And when it goes wrong, it’s a bigger process.

Actually, no, every time they have to make a repair, it costs.

Nope, not even close.

Lots of rock in that VT soil.

Built a deck for my mom and it was hell getting the footings in . Eventually rented an auger and a jackhammer. Auger to rock and then jackhammer the little shit out of Che way until I was a good 4’ deep. Really sucked.

My neighborhood has them buried

The same reason why most places dont

Yes. Exactly.

Yeah I’m on your side here. Aesthetically more pleasing, less damage done when major storms happen, and yeah it costs a lot for upkeep and to get things started but then if it’s done correctly, the amount of times someone is gonna have to dig it up for repairs becomes minimal.

Because zoning in those towns require it.

It's difficult to trend, you aren't as susceptible to certain kinds of failure but it makes maintenance and repair much more difficult. Linemen can visually confirm hazards and sources in the air and change out broken or old equipment quickly. Underground requires a heavy amount of planning and engineering. I'm still a bigger fan of underground but it's not an easy swap.

Can you expand on this

From reading just abt everyone’s comments here.

My question is, What about cutting more trees around those lines? I’ve seen them do that on 89. But there’s a heck ton more to do in other areas…? I’m sure this would be an investment, but it should help when stories come in, no?
I’m aware it would mean cutting billions of trees. So I’m not saying let’s do it, just for the sake of the argument, maybe investing in cutting trees can save us money and carbon footprint in the long run

Federal money

This is a common public policy/funding issue IMHO, not speaking to Vermont specifically, which I know a little less about, but this issue generally.

Although it's "expensive" it's not necessarily more expensive than doing it the current way. Though it might be, but nowhere near as much as is claimed, and I've worked on these issues about costs in the past as a mayor and municipal administrator with utility companies for example after Hurricanes Irene and Sandy.

The problem is that the current way we pay for this, the costs are spread out over many years, capitalized over time through utility's rates as well as state, and mostly federal, taxes when grants from FEMA, etc are provided back to reimburse after major events, etc. Plus the huge costs of lost food, time, economy, gas used in generators, injury, etc, etc that are not really tracked on any one agency or entity's balance sheet, but we still all pay for. So we're paying, but we're paying in smaller amounts to many different parties, whereas the cost to bury lines would collapse all of that into one place and immediately seem higher. It's a similar dynamic with things like homelessness. On that case, we actually do spend *more* on homelessness through the costs of police, ambulances, and ERs, and other healthcare and criminal justice issues that result from chronic homelessness, (plus lost economy, plus it's just morally horrible, how do we put a price on that?), but all of that costs more than it would cost to simply house homeless people. But by doing that you put all the money in one place upfront, so it seems more, rather than it being spread out in different years/governments/sectors.

Yep. Keep housing costs up and lower income folks out. Just like Jericho wants it.

Viva la granite! ✊

Same. I'm on a small neighborhood in Burlington's New North End near Ethan Allen Park, and we've got all utility lines buried. But that was easier to do since this section wasn't expanded/built in until the late 1960's. Much easier and cheaper to do at the time of than to retrofit (though still more expensive than regular lines.)

I used to plant trees for a living, and I used to always proclaim, "Welcome to Vermont, home of the world's rockiest soil!"

Do you want to wait until spring thaw to fix wiring problems? And we can't "just dig" through rock. We'd have to blast the neighborhood.

Love it.
"Oh wow, guys! There's this crazy new thing other people are doing! Did you know we can... BURY our power lines?! Spread the word!"

We are not only sand and we have frost here that moves rocks and breaks power lines and such calf. Does not freeze for the most part

Okay have my upvote for the day then-see if i care

This wasn't in VT, but on a hike up Mt. Garfield a few years ago I passed a guy who said to me, out of the blue, "whoever said 'leave no stone unturned' never visited New Hampshire"

They just finished doing this in downtown Waterbury. The process took about 3 years with having to put in new sidewalks and everything.

Some neighborhoods do.

Look up the origins of Star Pudding Road and get back to me

I think you got your answer but I’ll add that it’s really hard to fix broken power lines under ground versus if they’re above ground. You have to disable huge sections of the power grid to perform troubleshooting and identify the broken lines. Then it’s a huge pain in the ass and takes a long time to pull the lines and replace them.

I love how I have been gardening in the same spot for years and still pull giant ass rocks out of the soil I till yearly.

Where are these regions in which underground utlities are not incredibly expensive? With, y'know, actual numbers to back your statement up.

Someone did the numbers and above ground lines are cheaper for the power companies.

The glaciers only retreated so they could get more stone.

>Even if you use existing underground utility trenches like where the plumbing and water lines are running, it is still expensive.

Minimum trench separation of water from electrical is 12in, sewer to electrical is 24in.

Yea, it's less than a bucket width. But the difference between a 6in trench and a 24in trench is a hell of a lot harder to bypass ledge.

In that case why doesn't EVERY state bury its power lines? In Manhattan they do this, and they suffer much less power outages during weather patterns.

Underrated comment right here

You turned their correct three-word answer...into a four sentence paragraph saying the same thing.

Actually, (speaking in the know here...) It's because VT has a "Investor Owned Utility (IOU)" that runs the electricity (a public good). (i.e. GMP exec compensation packages, a rotating door on the Public Utility Commission for past industry execs, and public officials, a subsidized "efficiency fund"... it goes on an on) Anyways, there are plenty of research papers on the performance of state IoU electricity models. And it becomes clear very quickly how the small state has blurred the lines on private vs public, and is one of the last IoUs standing. One result is "un-burried power lines" because, "it is too expensive" (we'd have to cut our CEO compensation and earnings per share).

I'm originally from the Midwest. It is not uncommon for there to be no above ground power lines in newer communities there. In the Midwest, urban sprawl is lead by horizontal drilling operations. The lines are in the ground before houses, businesses, schools, etc. are laid out. If it were cost prohibitive in the region, the stingy politicians would squash it.

The Midwest might have billboards, but it does not have huge bundles of above ground power lines like the NE does (except in the older parts). The reason I've heard again and again is that the NE's abundant ledge makes it really hard to run long horizontal drilling operations. You can translate that to expensive if you want. I'm sure it could be done with enough time and funding.

The best comment so far

oh Honey, your testosterone injections are showing.

weird, it’s like I posted on a public forum about it. what the sleuther you are!

California also has plenty of aboveground power. It seems like a good % of the forest fires are blamed on PG&E infrastructure.

Your question is offensive because it screams OUTSIDER! Who do you think you are to come to Vermont and dare question the way things are done here? If you see something, no matter how ridiculous it seems to you at first, second, third, or even the hundredth glance -- hell, even if you've studied the subject matter or whatever it is, in great detail over the course of a storied career -- keep your coddled, privileged, uninformed, elitist, and patently "un-Vermont" ideas to yourself. You are and always will be a know-nothing flatlander.

You should have asked which brand and size generator you should buy, from whom, and what a fair price is for installing it. Don't think about cause-based approaches to problem solving at this scale, think about creative reactive work-around "fixes" to perpetually disruptive conditions and you'll be fine. A good test for whether you're doing it right (and well) is if your process begins seeming repetitive and starts feeling like you're in a "death by a thousand paper cuts" spiral. Common tells or giveaways that you've arrived at "right mind", are when you stop saying out loud "WTF," or "You've got to be f%&$ing kidding me", etc., and just think it, like a stoic might.

Oh yeah, welcome!

I’ll have to look into that, I didn’t know that.

This is the kind of breakdown I was thinking about, but it seems like everyone in this comment section is so afraid of change that they can’t even have a friendly conversation about it.

I hear you. I just can’t imagine it not being cost effective to bury the lines. Yeah it would be expensive upfront, and it wouldn’t all be able to be done, let alone at one time. And it would be even more expensive to dig down there and figure out where the issue is coming from than it would be to physically see the issue from above ground.

But how much would we be able to save on emergencies services (whether it be the on-call GMP folks or the fire dept because of a live wire during a storm) — plus having to replace old equipment anyway? If we can’t reuse the above ground equipment and have to get new stuff anyway, wouldn’t that put us in better standing in the long run too?

How many years would it take to level out and we start profiting from the underground systems?

Everyone in this comment section just wants to point fingers about how expensive everything would be but where are the actual numbers? Has anyone even thought that far ahead?

So are power outages. Wonder if anyone has looked at the math on that.

Why don’t you just, like, bury them??

• some chick in California

LOL...look at all the linemen downvoting us...LOLOL.

I know 😂 Clearly we struck a nerve

None of the powerlines in New England really are buried because it’s so expensive and hard to do that

>"Oh wow, guys! There's this crazy new thing other people are doing! Did you know we can... BURY our power lines?! Spread the word!"

OP just asked a question or did I miss a comment somewhere?

"Where it's flat, it's easy to go sideways!" no sh*t.

Lol you are not following and are really worked up over this!

I don't think you understand that the mountains are here before the development. I realize that the do it the other way in the midwest, but here ain't there.

That's exactly what I am saying! Calm down and read through the thread again.

It's a legit question, but I like the implication that it's something we might not have looked into or thought about.
"Why haven't we?" is a good question. Rocks.
But the thought that it never occurred to us? Wat

California has that too though.

Got more slate than dirt in hubbardton lol

Power lines are paid for by whoever needs to extend then to get access to a new area. In a new construction house project, this is a significant expanse. Buried lines are more expensive than above ground lines. They also require an easement of like 50 ft on either side of bee buried limes which means clear cutting those trees and never letting them grow back - due to regulations. I determined that it was about 3x cheaper to simply build an off grid solar system than extehd the power lines, and don't regret my decision one bit

I assure you that the tens of thousands of engineers who keep the power on daily have run the numbers more than once on this.

I live on a hill in the sticks in Vermont at the end of the line for the local distribution network. We lost power for 4 days in the ‘big one’ just before Christmas. First priority when we got the house: backup power.

Think about how we are getting broadband throughout the state and how long that is taking. Consider that process is an absolute cakewalk when we are using existing poles and alignments.

Now think about burying the lines - many will be in existing roadways, many are across private property. Property rights, environmental permits, changing pathways if an existing aerial alignment cannot be followed.

This is a massive effort.

If we talk cost, consider the poles with transformers. A utility company rep told me shifting a transformer from the top of a pole to an underground concrete vault could cost $100k minimum under ideal conditions.

We have to keep the Vermont trolls fenced in somehow.

Buried power lines are typically put in when neighborhoods are built. Many of the homes in Vermont were built before the grid was even a thing. Unless it’s a new neighborhood, I imagine costs would be the prohibitive factor in why they aren’t underground.

Huntington too

Two words - frost heaves

Fun fact

Yep. Richmond, Williston, Underhill…. All good liberal towns.

One thing Vermonters can’t stand is out of staters that come in and tell us we need to be more like California

"where do they bury power lines"
"we bury power lines in the midwest because its flat"
"no shit you can bury power lines in the midwest because its flat"
what the fuck is that guy mad about lol

Because then you don't have to deal with all the other stuff that is already there under and above ground.

Solar has largely filled that gap. Septic is the expensive thing that everyone overlooks.

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Ask Woodstock, VT, they’ll tell you why it’s not a wise thing to do in VT.

Probably hangs lines for a living.

Rocks. Rocks everywhere.

We are simple people. We need our power lines so that we may hang our homespun cloths to dry. Really no offense to OP, it was a honest question.

indeed.. and there are other states.. which brings up rich context discussions... but the point is there are undoubtedly ways to better insulate the public good from corporate appetite in monopolistic Vt, and the PUC is just not up to it. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=ffa0b6dce36249c78369a27f541af97c

CA has many more IOUs so one, say PG&E does not dominate legislature.

btw, PG&E w/ 67,000 sq. miles, 5.5M electricity customers & 4.5M Natgas customers, Over 20,000 employees, and serious annual disasters... VT / GMP is 150 employees.

PG&E CEO 2021 annual salar = $1.3M (ignore stock comp, etc) : and GMP CEO 2019 annual pay was $1.4M when she retired.

When PUCs, or towns, mandate IOUs to bury the power lines for safety, it gets done. Unfortunately, GMP effectively writes their own legislation.

Convince me I am wrong.

Out of curiosity, what do folks in VT pay for power? In CA I’m at around 25 cents off peak up to about 60 cents per kWh peak. Every time PG&E gets asked to do something, they do it, and raise our rates accordingly.

not that adaptive a pay rate here. Generally we pay around $.21 /kWh.. but there are many many add ons, efficiency charges, etc.. so in teh end, the effective rate cab be about twice that.

also, your net metering is like $.35 for feed in (though may change)... ours is nonesense.. a kWh credit with a $.03 add on. ..

We are. It takes time

Because Vermont doesn't like to spend money on infrastructure, housing, or businesses. By the numbers, it will spend the most on law enforcement, prisons, and "emergency services", that all would not be as needed if those resources were spent on the first three more to begin with, but no one likes win-win's here.

Accurate

And rocks, too.

One does not simply 'dig a hole' in Vermont!

Consider that a lot of Vermont wasn’t on the grid till the 1930’s when the Federal Government instituted the Rural Electrification Program . At that time , most of the State was still open fields and pasture and the early lines were installed the easiest routes which often didn’t follow roads. The end result is that a lot of our current grid in now buried in the grown-in forrest and often hard to access. These sections are very costly to keep cleared. The trimming crews show up on our farm every few years to hack back the growth along these lines. Storm damage repairs are time consuming and due to demographics, our isolated lines are often the last to be fixed. Such is life on the back roads of Vermont. Losing power 2-3 times a year is expected. It will be 100 years before our lines are buried.