CHARLOTTE — Falling trees and branches are the No. 1 cause of storm-related outages, according to Duke Energy, which leaves many wondering why the utility doesn’t just bury those power lines.
Research by the Department of Energy shows just a 10% increase in underground lines can lead to a 14% decrease in annual outages.
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The state commissioned a study to see what it would take to put all North Carolina’s power lines underground after a 2002 ice storm, which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands.
They found it would take 25 years and more than double customers’ bills.
Duke Energy said it does retroactively put underground lines in outage-prone areas.
However, the utility says it’s more cost-effective in most cases to raise power lines higher or build redundant lines to prevent customer outages.
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