Dear Members,

Not until this year have I ever checked the calendar in advance to see when the winter season ends. Officially, it’s Wednesday, March 20, so you can mark your calendars too.

We’re blessed to live in this part of America where we have distinct seasons. By the time one season comes to an end, most of us are ready to turn the page to the next chapter. I don’t know about you, but Spring can’t get here soon enough. Give me the mowing, weed-eating and yes, allergies, over cold, damp, snowy, icy weather any day.

I have a project that’s waiting for drier, warmer weather. For the first time in years, I didn’t get to perform the annual fall ritual of reseeding my yard. With the active storm season last fall resulting in power restoration work and cleaning up the downed trees along my drive and around my yard, I just couldn’t get to it. So, if any of you have pent up energy from the winter and would like to assist with plugging, tilling and reseeding a yard, I have a job for you.

Why don’t you put all the overhead power lines underground so trees will not fall on them and knock the power out?

Because of all the storms the last few months, I did get a question posed from a member that I would like to address this month. The question was, “Why don’t you put all the overhead power lines underground so trees will not fall on them and knock the power out?”

I’ve written about this issue before but feel I need to address it again. On the surface, this seems like a very logical idea. From an engineering, operational and construction standpoint, it physically can be done. There are certainly situations where installing power lines underground makes sense. But there’s more to consider when you take a deeper dive into the details and get a clearer understanding. There are some drawbacks to putting all higher-voltage overhead power lines underground.

Randolph EMC does have underground lines. Our 4,332 miles of line is broken up into three categories. As of December 31, 2018, we had a total of 55 miles of overhead transmission lines, 3,561 miles of overhead distribution and service lines and 716 miles of underground distribution and service lines.

There are pros and cons to both overhead and underground lines. Underground power lines would certainly result in fewer outages during wind, snow or ice storms and there is less right-of-way maintenance required. However, the two main reasons we do not put all of our overhead higher-voltage power lines underground is because of the cost and outage and operations issues.

Several years ago, a major ice storm hit central North Carolina resulting in widespread outages for all the electric utilities. At the height of the storm, 80 percent of Randolph EMC’s members were out of power. After that storm, the N.C. Utilities Commission Public Staff investigated the feasibility of converting all overhead distribution lines to underground.

At that time, the Public Staff determined the balance sheets of the utilities would increase nearly six times the current net book value of their assets and that the conversion would take 25 years to complete. With the increased cost of line materials we have experienced the last few years, the cost would be ever higher today.

At that time, if you took into consideration the capital cost component for the conversion from overhead to underground lines, it was projected to result in a rate increase of more than 125 percent for the average residential consumer. Comparing new installations of single-phase primary lines, it cost approximately 80 percent more for underground lines to be installed versus overhead lines. As you can see, cost is an extremely important issue in this case.

We serve a number of developments and facilities that have underground installations and outages do occur on their underground lines. When an outage occurs, it is much more difficult to determine the cause and specific location of a fault on an underground line. On average, this results in a much longer outage time when compared to the restoration time for an outage on overhead lines.

There are times our line personnel can backfeed the power or make some temporary arrangements to restore power, but there are also times the power cannot be restored until the line is dug up and repaired. This results in very long outages.

Underground wire and hardware have extremely close tolerances between high voltage and ground. When these two get together, it’s not a good thing. Many times, this clearance is one-third of an inch or less. We have had numerous issues throughout the Randolph EMC service area where the underground cable and/or hardware deteriorates over time and results in continuous outages.

I hope this sheds some light on the very valid question of replacing overhead lines with underground lines. I also hope 2019 is much less eventful than 2018 was.

Cooperatively Yours,

Dale F. Lambert
Chief Executive Officer