Bury the power lines

[Midtowner]

The thing is we don’t have to bury the entire grid at once.

Exactly. Have a crew assigned to improving old construction, assign the appropriate engineers, and do the work over 10 or 20 or even 30 years and the work will be done eventually. Require new construction to bury wires.

I'm not sure why any of that is so complicated?

[mugofbeer]

Exactly. Have a crew assigned to improving old construction, assign the appropriate engineers, and do the work over 10 or 20 or even 30 years and the work will be done eventually. Require new construction to bury wires.

I'm not sure why any of that is so complicated?

^^^^

Edit: l've always looked on this as being like this country's illogical willingness to rebuild in flood zones and rushing to construct in the parts of New Orleans below sea level.

[Plutonic Panda]

Exactly. Have a crew assigned to improving old construction, assign the appropriate engineers, and do the work over 10 or 20 or even 30 years and the work will be done eventually. Require new construction to bury wires.

I'm not sure why any of that is so complicated?

+1000 I pains me when I see a major reconstruction project and they simply move the above ground lines to the side instead of burying them. Even more so with new construction.

[zefferoni]

I think service line burials would be feasible on a long term basis. Burying the primary voltage lines would be a nightmare, especially in older neighborhoods. A good chunk of my neighbors in Linwood have garages/sheds/gardens etc in the ROW that would need to be demolished.

[shawnw]

What if you called OG&E and said, I want to bury my service line and I'll pay 100% of that cost. Do we think they'd do it? I kinda don't think they would, but if anybody tries that let us know how it goes.

[Pete]

What if you called OG&E and said, I want to bury my service line and I'll pay 100% of that cost. Do we think they'd do it? I kinda don't think they would, but if anybody tries that let us know how it goes.

You can pay to have lines buried by the utility companies.

I'm sure it's well more than $100.

[zefferoni]

They'll for sure do it, I've been meaning to for a while but after this latest storm I won't have to worry about trees for another decade.
Last I checked, it was a flat fee of $1,800. I'm not sure if that includes the reconfiguration of your meter box or if you'd need an electrician in addition to that.

[TheTravellers]

What if you called OG&E and said, I want to bury my service line and I'll pay 100% of that cost. Do we think they'd do it? I kinda don't think they would, but if anybody tries that let us know how it goes.

Wouldn't have helped with our outage - the power went out on our physical block on Tue at noon, that night our neighbor's tree fell and took out 3-4 individual house lines. So when they came out, they had to fix their lines (not mine, it stayed connected), *then* they had to fix the main cause of the outage. So burying mine would not have kept my power on at all or brought it back in any shorter timeframe than it did come back on in.

[Bill Robertson]

They'll for sure do it, I've been meaning to for a while but after this latest storm I won't have to worry about trees for another decade.
Last I checked, it was a flat fee of $1,800. I'm not sure if that includes the reconfiguration of your meter box or if you'd need an electrician in addition to that.

You would have to have an electrician replace the meter box with the underground type, rerun the conductors into your panel from the meter socket and install the conduit going down into the ground. All of those things are the building owners responsibility.

[shawnw]

They'll for sure do it, I've been meaning to for a while but after this latest storm I won't have to worry about trees for another decade.
Last I checked, it was a flat fee of $1,800. I'm not sure if that includes the reconfiguration of your meter box or if you'd need an electrician in addition to that.

Thanks that's helpful info. You'd think insurance companies would incentivize this as it might save them more long term.

[Bill Robertson]

Thanks that's helpful info. You'd think insurance companies would incentivize this as it might save them more long term.

I wonder how much power outages cost insurance companies?

[shawnw]

Referring more to ice storm induced power outages

[Bill Robertson]

Referring more to ice storm induced power outages

OK. I wonder how much ice storm related power outages cost insurance companies?

[jn1780]

OGE could spend some more effort to cut trees back from the lines. If they didn't cut trees back away from the right of ways, you would eventually have a problem tree roots anyway with underground lines.

Anyway, the virus is still beats the ice storm with its economic destructiveness.

[Bill Robertson]

OGE could spend some more effort to cut trees back from the lines. If they didn't cut trees back away from the right of ways, you would eventually have a problem tree roots anyway with underground lines.

Anyway, the virus is still beats the ice storm with its economic destructiveness.

Seldom does a week go by in the spring and summer that I don't see a crew cutting limbs away from power lines.

[TheTravellers]

OGE could spend some more effort to cut trees back from the lines. If they didn't cut trees back away from the right of ways, you would eventually have a problem tree roots anyway with underground lines.

Anyway, the virus is still beats the ice storm with its economic destructiveness.

OG&E can trim all the lines they want, but that still won't help with the individual service lines to each house, which the homeowner is responsible for and which have to be checked before power is turned back on. And there is a huge amount of homeowners that won't trim those trees for a variety of reasons (personal experience with the neighbor next door that thought it was too expensive, and now she's facing insurance claims from two of her trees coming down and damaging other neighbors' property, wonder if that expense will be more than the initial cost if she had trimmed her trees?).

[catch22]

The city absolutely should consider a long term vision of burying as many lines as possible. The cost certainly is enormous but spread over 30 years it can be manageable. Even setting a partial goal, of say 30-40% of lines would enable faster response in other areas of the city.

I never thought about it until this thread, but where I live (Co Springs) there are very few overhead lines. The closest overhead line to me is over a half-mile away, and I don't even think it serves my neighborhood. I believe it serves a strip mall on the corner. That line is buried under the intersections, though. There are some long-distance transmission lines throughout the city, but those are quite robust. I can only think of one time I have lost power in my house, and that was for about 30 minutes during a very strong thunderstorm. I am guessing that a transformer station was struck by lightning, but the response to restore was quick. Snow and ice storms are never a worry with regards to power. While it is not as large as OKC, it certainly can be done. I would argue our ground up here is less suitable with rocky soil and a large number of trees, specifically aspens which are essentially giant 50-foot tall weeds with root systems whose reach can be measured in acres, not feet.

[LocoAko]

Finally got my power back on Day 15 and three missed restoration deadlines from OG&E. Little to no communication from them. And I'm in the core of the city, not some far-flung rural neighborhood. What a mess.

[gopokes88]

I work in the power-line business.

The ideas you guys are talking about aren't even in the hundreds of millions. It's in the billions. Burying power-lines in an urban environment is $1-$1.5 million dollars per MILE. Overhead is ranges from $25-$50k.

Paying to put solar on everyone's roof would be cheaper.

This entire thing is nonsensical.

[shawnw]

Sold. We'll take the solar.

[Buffalo Bill]

I work in the power-line business.

The ideas you guys are talking about aren't even in the hundreds of millions. It's in the billions. Burying power-lines in an urban environment is $1-$1.5 million dollars per MILE. Overhead is ranges from $25-$50k.

Paying to put solar on everyone's roof would be cheaper.

This entire thing is nonsensical.

Agreed. $57.5 billion in 2007 dollars. This for 858,000 customers and about half the state’s population. Easy math.

https://www.oge.com/wps/wcm/connect/...=AJPERES&CVID=

[Plutonic Panda]

Yet somehow other cities and countries are able to do it. Guess it’s just another thing Oklahoma can’t do because it’s too expensive. Lol

[Buffalo Bill]

Yet somehow other cities and countries are able to do it. Guess it’s just another thing Oklahoma can’t do because it’s too expensive. Lol

Name another city that has gone in and buried their electric grid after it was already above ground. Or a state, or country; it just hasn’t happened.

[RustytheBailiff]

Yet somehow other cities and countries are able to do it. Guess it’s just another thing Oklahoma can’t do because it’s too expensive. Lol

Name one city over a population of 250,000, or even 100,000, who have retroactively buried their power lines?

Why would you think spending in the vicinity of 57 Billion dollars to bury power lines would be a good investment? I think I'd rather go without electricity five days every decade or so rather that spend an extra $80-260 per month on my electric bill for the next 30 years.



https://www.oge.com/wps/wcm/connect/...=AJPERES&CVID=

[jedicurt]

Name another city that has gone in and buried their electric grid after it was already above ground. Or a state, or country; it just hasn’t happened.

well a few small cities have around the country... but it was done with taxpayer money, i don't know if any have finished that plan... but like i remember it being a big deal in 2018 for Palm Desert California, they approved a $600 million utility plan that would be paid back to the city by an increase in sales tax specifically for it. It actually looks alike a suburb of Tampa Florida is doing it and paying for it with a tax that is added to everyone's electric bill that will generate the close to $15,000 per customer it would cost over the course of 10 years.


so for like OKC to do it... they would probably have to make it a MAPS initiative... and so have it be done in chunks maybe even over the course of several MAPS. much like the sidewalk projects.