Joint Trench
Let’s start a conversation about joint trenching North American utilities in a single, common excavation (or trench). Other countries, and some North American electric utilities, have collaborated and used joint trenches for decades. Let’s explore the societal benefits of better safety, resilience, and affordability.
Safety
Safety of our electric grid is paramount. Joint trench provides improved safety and improved performance, leading to fewer truck rolls for maintenance and repair, reduced fire threat, fewer cars hitting poles, and reduced lightning strikes, animal/avian-related outages, and downed wire accidents.
Resilience
Resilience is the ability of an electric, gas, water or communications utility asset to withstand a high-impact low-probability event with little or no customer outages.
Joint trench can eliminate extended outages measured in days due to fire, wind, ice, or other storms.
Affordability
Affordability is an increasingly serious challenge in our civil and electrical infrastructure industries. Some case studies suggest that each utility in a joint trench may save up to 40 percent of their “individually installed” capital cost. Less cost for each utility merits strong consideration.
Better reliability, better aesthetics, better maintenance of property values, and better run communities are all possible with joint trench. Let’s have a conversation and build our infrastructure better for generations to come.
Joint Use Trench Industry Links:
PDi2 Utility Undergrounding Life-Cycle Cost Guide