Austin City Council could vote to bury power lines after February storm

KXAN
by: Kelsey Thompson
Posted: Mar 19, 2023 / 02:01 PM CDT
Updated: Mar 19, 2023 / 10:02 PM CDT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — After the February ice storm led to millions of damaged trees and hundreds of thousands of Austinites without power, city officials could pursue burying power lines.

Austin City Council will consider the measure at its March 23 council meeting. If approved, the city will conduct a feasibility study and develop a long-term plan to prioritize the conversions “for high-priority uses and areas without new construction opportunities.”

Key infrastructures that could receive those upgrades include:

• Critical infrastructure such as water, wastewater facilities
• Health and safety infrastructure, including hospitals and nursing homes
• Emergency response infrastructure, including police, fire and emergency medical service stations
• Emergency shelter locations, resilience hubs
• Areas with “a history of frequent electric service disruption or high maintenance cost”
• Consideration of community equity, historically underserved communities
• High wildfire risk areas
• Areas with tree canopy risks, critical root zones
• Areas that can impact public areas like parkland

It would also earmark underground lines for future city projects as well as look into underground power line constructions along major transit corridors, including the Project Connect mass transit system and other roadway improvements.

Austin Energy has more than 7,000 miles of distribution lines buried underground, or 58% of the network’s lines, as of 2021 figures.

While the council has expressed interest in burying lines, it does come at a cost. During a February AE press conference, AE General Manager Jackie Sargent said the endeavor would cost “billions of dollars.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Peter Lake, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Texas. Lake said while it helps prevent power disruptions from fallen branches, buried lines can also be more difficult to repair.

“Just like anything they come with pros and cons,” Lake told KXAN in February. “The primary benefit is that when we have ice on trees and branches are falling, if the lines are underground, then outages are less of an issue. The downside of underground power lines is the extraordinary increase in cost.”

While estimates vary, Lake said burying one mile’s worth of above-ground power lines can cost approximately $1 million.

“In addition, maintenance on underground power lines is also challenging,” Lake said. “Instead of having somebody in a truck on the side of the road up in the bucket work in a powerline, you’ve got to dig up the street, you got to dig up yards, which of course is more disruptive to homes and families.”