Can’t Atlantic City Electric eliminate power outages by putting all power lines underground?
Burying power lines, which is very costly to customers, is not the answer to all outages. While placing power lines underground may result in fewer outages caused by storms, when outages do occur they are typically of much longer duration. Locating the source of the outage is more difficult because it is not visible, requires the use of specialized equipment to test for and locate the problem, and digging up the cable adds time to the repair. Furthermore, sections of a feeder may be placed underground but we cannot always bury the entire feeder, and the remaining overhead sections are still vulnerable to weather and tree-related outages.
