FPL plans for underground power lines

Utility will seek approval to test pilot program

Florida Power & Light Co. is planning a pilot program to put utility lines underground in notyet-identified neighborhoods in the state.

Whether to add more power lines underground has been a decadeslong debate among FPL, cities and neighborhoods.

FPL said September’s Hurricane Irma showed that underground main power lines are more resilient in general, and during storms because they can’t be downed by trees and overgrown vegetation — the prime reason that 90 percent of FPL’s customers experienced an outage.

During Irma, 69 percent of hardened, overhead main power lines and 82 percent of nonhardened main power lines experienced outages, while only 19 percent of underground main lines lost power, FPL said in response to Sun Sentinel questions.

FPL said it plans to seek the Florida Public Service Commission’s approval for the pilot in locations in its 35-county service territory, “to determine which power lines would benefit the most from undergrounding to enhance overall reliability,” FPL spokesman Bill Orlove said.

If regulators approve the project, “we will be working with those selected communities and neighborhoods to begin undergrounding certain lateral, or neighborhood power lines,” he said.

During Irma, 69 percent of hardened, overhead main power lines and 82 percent of nonhardened main power lines experienced outages, while only 19 percent of underground main lines lost power.

The pilot surfaced in an FPL response to commission staff questions about its performance during Hurricane Irma. In that Feb. 19 filing, FPL said it is “planning to shift some of its overhead lateral hardening planned for 2018 to underground lateral hardening.”

Orlove said more detailed information about FPL’s grid hardening plans will be part of its 2018 reliability report.

In a workshop on April 3 and 4, the Public Service Commission is scheduled to review FPL and other utilities’ preparation and response to Irma and to 2016’s Hurricane Matthew.

More cities have been considering underground lines after Irma, which resulted in widespread outages, even though the storm brought mostly tropicalforce instead of hurricaneforce winds to the region.

FPL says it has spent nearly $3 billion to upgrade its electric grid in the state over the past decade.