Work in progress. This page is an early draft — the full, sourced deep-dive is still being written.
- Done at 500 kV
- California already forced a built 500 kV line underground
- Lower impact
- Removes the towers, the viewshed, and the wildfire-ignition risk
- Costs more
- Higher per-mile cost and longer outage repair — a real trade-off
The idea, in brief
Undergrounding is expensive and can take longer to repair — but it is real and has been built at 500 kV in California. In Chino Hills, the CPUC ordered Southern California Edison to tear down towers it had already erected and bury a 3.5-mile 500 kV segment through a residential neighborhood. The U.S. Department of Energy also lists undergrounding among the standard tools utilities use in high wind- and wildfire-risk areas. [1] [2]
The case here is to study burying the line where it runs nearest homes, Vail Ranch Middle School, the hospital, and the Temecula Creek crossing — not the whole route, but the stretches where the impact is worst. (Stub — fuller treatment, with the cost trade-offs, is coming.)
Go deeper
Sources
- [1]CPUC Decision D.13-07-018 — orders SCE to underground TRTP Segment 8A through Chino Hills — California Public Utilities Commission
- [2]How It Works: Electric Transmission & Distribution and Protective Measures — U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER)