Gerald Ensley

Democrat senior writer

The cry goes up every time Tallahassee experiences a big storm, with trees falling on electric lines and knocking out the power for many residents:

"Why doesn't Tallahassee put its electric lines underground?"

Sure enough, the cry went up after the June 30 windstorm. Hundreds of trees fell on power lines and houses. More than 30,000 customers were without electric power for hours; it was two days before all customers were restored.

The morning after the storm, several readers emailed this newspaper: "SouthWood has underground lines, why not the rest of Tallahassee?" one wrote. "In Germany, the power never goes out because all their lines are buried underground," wrote another.

So here's the simple answer as to why all Tallahassee electric distribution lines are not underground: It's too darned expensive.

Though a majority of Tallahassee electric distribution lines are underground, more than 1,000 miles of wire remain overhead. City officials estimate it would cost about $2 billion — that's billion with a B — to move all Tallahassee electric distribution lines underground.

They estimate it would take 50 years. They estimate they would have to boost electric rates by about 15 percent to 20 percent per year for 50 years (see chart).

Throw in a few other issues associated with underground power lines — such as insulated wires underground have to be replaced every 25 to 30 years because of heat build-up — and you can see why Tallahassee officials aren't champing at the bit to bury all electric lines.

"Certainly, we wish 50 years ago as developments came online, they were required to put electric lines underground. But they didn't," said City Commissioner Scott Maddox. "So it would be enormously expensive for us to retrofit our existing neighborhoods."

What would undergrounding cost?

A big chunk of Tallahassee electric distribution lines — the ones that run directly to homes and businesses — are already underground. The city requires big developments and encourages small developments to install its new utility lines underground. Since the 1980s, every new development in Tallahassee has buried its electric distribution lines. Tallahassee's downtown electric wires also are underground.

The result is 1,720 miles of the city utility's total 2,870 miles of distribution lines — almost exactly 60 percent — are underground. The developers pay the costs of that construction. And the cost of installing underground lines is roughly the same as installing overhead lines when you have undeveloped land such as SouthWood was when it was constructed.

The giant transmission lines that deliver power to thousands of homes are vastly more expensive to bury because of their size and amount of electricity they carry. Generally, they are erected along the sides of roads or through pathways in the woods, where they are less susceptible to tree or wind damage.

That leaves Tallahassee with 1,150 miles of distribution lines overhead.

National studies place the cost of converting overhead lines to underground lines at $350,000 per mile to $3 million a mile. The cost varies depending on the complications of digging underground and the cost of acquiring rights of way from property owners. In mostly residential areas, where there are few impediments, the cost skews to the low end. In heavily developed areas, where the burrowing faces many and may require buying right of way, the cost to the high end.

Tallahassee electric department officials estimate it would cost $1.7 million per mile in Tallahassee to convert the city's remaining overhead wires to underground wires. They base that on having done several conversions for developers who were willing to pay the city to . Most recently, they converted one-third mile of Woodward Avenue, near College Town, at a cost of $300,000.

At $1.7 million per mile for 1,150 miles of currently overhead electric lines, the cost is $1.95 billion to convert all of Tallahassee to underground electric power. City officials estimate crews could convert 20 miles to 25 miles each year at a cost of $40 million a year. They estimate it would take 50 years to complete the project.

Some might say, "Hey, let's pass another penny sales tax." But the penny sales tax for Blueprint 2000 infrastructure projects raises only about $22 million per year — and another penny would push Leon County to an 8.5 percent sales tax.

Some might say, "Use the annual $28 million electric department profits," which are transferred to the general city budget — though the city would have to raise property taxes to make up the difference. As you might have noticed last week, some folks hate property tax raises.

There would be other costs: Telephone and cable companies that currently string their wires from city electric poles would have to pay to bury their wires — a cost they'd likely pass along to their customers. Each Tallahassee electric customer would have to pay $2,000 or $3,000 for the connection to their home or business.

"While I would love to see the entire system underground, I think it would be cost prohibitive," said Rob McGarrah, general manager of Tallahassee's electric department. "We've got to balance cost and reliability. And it would be very costly."

A common refrain is underground failures take longer to repair: When an overhead line is knocked down by a tree, it's easy to find the broken wire and repair. When an underground line fails, repairmen have to pull the entire line to find the problem, which may take hours.

Jerry Warren, electric utility director of Winter Park, said that's an overblown concern. Winter Park is putting its distribution lines underground, and as it does so, it "loops" each connection so it's fed from two directions. That allows a circuit that loses power from one direction to be switched to power from the other direction. Much of the Tallahassee system has the same capability, either manually or automatically.

"Does it take longer to fix underground lines? Yes, but we take one wire out of service, switch power to the other one and restore power to the customer while we go in and fix the failure," Warren said. "You hear that argument (of longer to fix) from utilities who don't want to (convert to underground)."

The Winter Park experience

Winter Park, just north Orlando, embraced a total retrofit in 2005 when the city bought its electric utility from now-Duke Energy because of repeated complaints by residents about power outages. One of the tenets of the referendum to buy the utility — approved by 69 percent of the voters — was the city's promise to move all electric lines underground.

Winter Park has a smaller electric system than Tallahassee: It covers 9 square miles, has 191 miles of distribution lines and serves 14,000 customers — to Tallahassee's 221 square miles, 2,870 miles of distribution lines and more than 115,000 customers.

So far, Winter Park has 117 miles underground, with 74 miles to go in a retrofit expected to be complete by 2024. And Warren said the retrofitting is producing improvements in reliability.

When Winter Park bought the utility, the average outage time was 200 minutes per year per customer. Now, the average customer outage is 70 minutes per year.

Winter Park has paid for the undergrounding by using electric sales revenues: Rates have not gone up, as the city spends 7-8 percent of its annual electric revenue to put in at least four miles a year. Winter Park is averaging $345,000 per mile for undergrounding. Its costs are on the low end of the scale in part because most of the conversions have been in residential areas. In addition, residents have granted the city easements on their properties, saving the city the cost of buying right of way.

Even so, Warren said choosing to go underground with an electric system depends on a city's priorities.

"The truth is overhead lines work very well and are very reliable. So I think most utilities say why spend the money for undergrounding when overhead is working well," Warren said. "(However) this community said 'That's what we want to do.' Does it make business sense? Probably not. But we have elected officials and a community committed to (undergrounding)."





Undergrounding is not for everyone

Ted Kury, director of energy studies at the University of Florida's Public Utility Research Center, said the benefits of moving all electric wires underground vary from community to community. Placing electric wires underground in communities prone to flooding can produce less reliability, while undergrounding would improve reliability in places subject to regular wind damage.

"It's very difficult to make a blanket statement," Kury said. "It's very much an area and project specific question about whether it's good to do."

Esthetics can be a consideration: Anaheim, California, is halfway and $196 million through a 220-mile undergrounding project it began in 1990 to improve the appearance of major roads in the city that's home to Disneyland. Reliability is important to communities like Winter Park. But the chief factor for most communities, Kury said, is cost effectiveness, because "you have to make sure the taxpayer and consumer receives good value for their money."

"The comparison is often Europe; people bring up the greater reliability (in Europe) because most of their electric lines are underground," Kury said. "But what people overlook is that Europeans pay two to three times what we pay per kilowatt hour. So yeah, greater reliability but at greater cost. And you're not just paying when a storm comes but year round."

Barry Moline is executive director of the Florida Municipal Power Association, an association of the state's 34 municipally owned utilities, which includes Tallahassee.

Moline said there's no question undergrounding provides more service reliability — "Or why is everything new put underground?" He said most people would say removing the tangle of overhead wires provides a better looking streetscape.

"The question is do we as a community want to spend the money to underground everything for the possibility of being hit once every 10 or 20 or 30 years?" Moline asked. "There's no (consensus) answer to that. It's like how much do we want to invest in a performing arts center or a bridge? It's not a question of whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. It's what our priorities are."

McGarrah said the city's priorities are to continue improving its already low average of power outages (73-76 minutes per year per customer). Tallahassee has put automatic switching equipment on many big circuits, so that when power is lost from one direction, it is automatically routed from the other direction. The electric department has embarked on a pilot program of increased tree trimming to reduce outages .

Maddox said improvements in the existing system are more cost effective than undergrounding the entire system.

"I think the juice is not worth the squeeze," Maddox said. "A day or two of inconvenience except in giant storms like Hurricane Kate is more preferable than being taxed out of existence to pay for it."

A rate increase for underground utilities?

City officials estimate burying the city's overhead electric distribution lines underground would cost $40 million a year for 50 years. One way to pay would be an increase in electricity rates.

Below are current average monthly electric-only rates, their projected cost with an increase to cover $40 million per year and the dollar amount of the increase in parentheses.

Residential $114.55 $131.62 ($17.07)

Small commercial $149.54 $175.14 ($25.60)

Medium commercial $2,851 $3,363 ($512)

Large commercial $18,509 $21,992 ($3,413)