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A method to estimate the costs and benefits of undergrounding electricity transmission and distribution lines

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  • Larsen, Peter H.

Abstract

There has been a general shortfall of peer-reviewed literature identifying methods to estimate the costs and benefits of strategies employed by electric utilities to improve grid resilience. This paper introduces—for the first time—a comprehensive analysis framework to estimate the societal costs and benefits of implementing one strategy to improve power system reliability: undergrounding power transmission and distribution lines. It is shown that undergrounding transmission and distribution lines can be a cost-effective strategy to improve reliability, but only if certain criteria are met before the decision to underground is made.

Suggested Citation

  • Larsen, Peter H., 2016. "A method to estimate the costs and benefits of undergrounding electricity transmission and distribution lines," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 47-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:60:y:2016:i:c:p:47-61
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2016.09.011
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Larsen, Peter H. & Boehlert, Brent & Eto, Joseph & Hamachi-LaCommare, Kristina & Martinich, Jeremy & Rennels, Lisa, 2018. "Projecting future costs to U.S. electric utility customers from power interruptions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 1256-1277.
    2. Braun, Alexander & Braun, Julia & Weigert, Florian, 2023. "Extreme weather risk and the cost of equity," CFR Working Papers 23-08, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    3. Dunn, Laurel N. & Sohn, Michael D. & LaCommare, Kristina Hamachi & Eto, Joseph H., 2019. "Exploratory analysis of high-resolution power interruption data reveals spatial and temporal heterogeneity in electric grid reliability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 206-214.
    4. Fant, Charles & Boehlert, Brent & Strzepek, Kenneth & Larsen, Peter & White, Alisa & Gulati, Sahil & Li, Yue & Martinich, Jeremy, 2020. "Climate change impacts and costs to U.S. electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    5. Kairui Feng & Min Ouyang & Ning Lin, 2022. "Tropical cyclone-blackout-heatwave compound hazard resilience in a changing climate," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Andrzej Jezierski & Cezary Mańkowski & Rafał Śpiewak, 2021. "Energy Savings Analysis in Logistics of a Wind Farm Repowering Process: A Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Hughes, William & Watson, Peter L. & Cerrai, Diego & Zhang, Xinxuan & Bagtzoglou, Amvrossios & Zhang, Wei & Anagnostou, Emmanouil, 2024. "Assessing grid hardening strategies to improve power system performance during storms using a hybrid mechanistic-machine learning outage prediction model," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    8. Gorman, Will & Barbose, Galen & Pablo Carvallo, Juan & Baik, Sunhee & Miller, Chandler & White, Philip & Praprost, Marlena, 2023. "County-level assessment of behind-the-meter solar and storage to mitigate long duration power interruptions for residential customers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 342(C).
    9. Gorman, Will & Mills, Andrew & Wiser, Ryan, 2019. "Improving estimates of transmission capital costs for utility-scale wind and solar projects to inform renewable energy policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electric system reliability; Grid resilience; Power outages; Undergrounding; Cost–benefit analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy

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