MID-ATLANTIC UTILITIES UNDERGROUNDING PROGRAM CASE STUDY 54 2. CREATING A RESILIENCY PROGRAM After building potential resiliency program objectives, the next step in the Utility Infrastructure Resiliency Playbook (Playbook) is to begin the process of establishing how a resiliency program can support the pursuit of the objective and how to create a resiliency program. The case study represents a combination of three Mid-Atlantic utility experiences and is used to introduce this concept and describe how they used the preliminary analysis of outage history, weather exposure, and historic performance to begin building a resiliency program. CHALLENGE How to develop resiliency program options that anticipate greater storm frequency and severity, assess geographic and service territory risk exposure while meeting the objective to significantly improve reliability performance and dramatically reduce outage duration. Given the expectation of potential coastal flooding associated with greater storm frequency severity, the impact on underground assets must be considered. In the 1950s through 1970s many tap lines were run on the lot back and between lots. Since that point, these lines are now surrounded by 50- to 70-year-old trees both in and outside of the right-of-way, making nearly all these lines at-risk and inaccessible to bucket trucks for line repair. How to avoid social equity imbalance associated with a potential resilience program based on where the work might take place and ensure avoidance of lower-income customers subsidizing grid maintenance. SOLUTION A series of scenarios were assessed including the use of storage, smart meters, and photovoltaic to create micro-grid or islanding concepts that might achieve the same benefit as an undergrounding effort. Coastal and riverine flooding risks and options addressed including this risk exposure’s use as selection criteria for line segments for undergrounding or hardening. Selected neighborhoods, towns, and line segments originated from customer regions with a mix of income levels. This balance will achieve societal benefits of increased property values, reduced vegetation management, avoided costs from vehicle accidents, reduced fire sparking risk, improved service reliability, and improved emergency ingress/egress routes among others. Program concept developed including phasing of implementation to mitigate risks associated with program and setting of a pace that could be met in theory. The selection of line segments and the construction schedule was data-driven and balanced societal benefits. RESULT A set of different scenarios were studied and a preliminary resiliency plan targeting the undergrounding of approximately 4,000 miles of tap lines with an approximate cost of $2 billion or $500,000 per mile, was defined. Total program phased on an annual basis of approximately 300 miles per year or 25 miles per month. The data-driven plan yielded a socially equitable result of completed projects between high-income and low-income areas.
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