Quantifying the resilience benefits of undergrounding a circuit with utility data

A team of researchers from Iowa State University, led by Arslan Ahmad, Ian Dobson, and Anne Kimber, has published a groundbreaking study titled 'Quantifying the resilience benefits of undergrounding a circuit with utility data.' The paper, available on arXiv, presents a novel methodology for using historical utility outage data to perform a counterfactual analysis. Instead of relying on theoretical models, the researchers compared the actual historical performance of overhead power circuits against a simulated scenario where those same circuits had been buried underground in the past. This approach provides a concrete, data-backed assessment of a major infrastructure investment.

The results were stark. For two selected circuits, the simulation showed that undergrounding would have reduced 'customer hours lost'—a key metric of outage impact—by 75% and 78% annually. The analysis also demonstrated significant reductions in the average number of outages and the number of customers affected each year. Beyond just evaluating burial, the team extended their model to quantify the benefits of operational improvements, calculating the positive impact of investments that could make outage restoration 10% faster. This creates a powerful, dual-purpose tool for utility planners.

By providing hard numbers on outage reduction, the study moves the debate about costly undergrounding projects from anecdotal arguments to an evidence-based cost-benefit framework. Utilities can now use this methodology to prioritize which circuits to bury based on which will yield the greatest resilience payoff, potentially saving billions in storm-related damages and economic disruption. It represents a significant step toward building a more data-driven and resilient electrical grid.