Why put overhead lines underground?

First of all, it’s in Anchorage municipal code. Title 21 requires underground placement for all new or relocated lines (with a few exceptions for rural use, temporary installations, and frozen ground).

Title 21 also requires electric utilities to annually transition overhead lines to underground. Electric utilities keep an annually-updated 5-year plan of undergrounding projects. For each electric utility, the minimum annual budget for undergrounding is determined by a percentage of gross annual revenues. In 2022, Chugach Electric Association (CEA) budgeted close to $12,000,000 to underground existing overhead facilities.

Besides municipal code considerations, undergrounding is done for safety and reliability (when overhead equipment is sufficiently outdated), and of course for lifting neighborhood aesthetics.

Unless Muni code changes, it’s not a matter of if our power lines are undergrounded, but when. That said, it could take another 75 until all of Anchorage is undergrounded.

How is undergrounding paid for?

To support the annual undergrounding projects,CEA includes a monthly charge to its all of its customers, calculated as 2% of their monthly bill. Property owners do not otherwise pay for general construction costs when undergrounding occurs in their neighborhood.

However, some properties would need to have their meter relocated to work with the undergrounding design, and this is an owner expense.

How is undergrounding done?

• Trenching from the surface
• Boring horizontally under ground

AtoA construction challenges ​

• We live in an old neighborhood, with some odd-shaped lots.
• The terrain includes some steep portions and a few significant retaining walls.
• Land rights seem the biggest hurdle. Some properties already have utility easement, while others do not. As such, CEA cannot underground without new easements from some property owners. Well, actually they could, but it would mean coloring outside the lines of their design philosophy.
• If the underground lines must be trenched (and not horizontally bored), trees, shrubs and other plants may need to be removed from the trench area. CEA will handle the removal, but they will not be replaced (except seeding new grass).
• Fences and sheds in the path of a necessary trench may be dissassembled or moved by CEA contractors, but will also be reinstalled or replaced. However, decks that need to be removed will not be replaced. It suspect this is a liability issue.