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

Peter H. Larsen

Energy Economics, 2016, vol. 60, issue C, 47-61

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.

Keywords: Electric system reliability; Grid resilience; Power outages; Undergrounding; Cost–benefit analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O2 Q4 Q5 R00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:60:y:2016:i:c:p:47-61

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2016.09.011

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