Power Outages Spark Renewed Debate: Should We Bury More Power Lines?

HOUSTON – The issue of burying power lines has resurfaced after Hurricane Beryl left millions without power.

In May, KPRC 2 Investigates’ Robert Arnold discovered that CenterPoint had over 21,000 miles of distribution lines underground, and 26,000 miles of transmission lines buried, as stated on the company’s website. Officials revealed that about 60% of their customers are served by these underground lines.

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Through open records requests, KPRC 2 Investigates found that CenterPoint Energy has undertaken 66 major underground engineering projects since 2018. Four of these projects were approved by the City of Houston in 2023, covering areas such as the Heights, Midvale, and Southwest Houston.

In a previous interview with KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding, Jason Ryan, the Executive Vice President of Regulatory Service and Government Affairs, stated: “We run and maintain enough distribution lines to go around the world more than twice.”

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CenterPoint is committed to continuing the effort to bury power lines.

Ryan emphasized, “We need state approval to significantly increase our undergrounding efforts. That’s why we’ve included requests for more undergrounding in our resilience plan filed a few months ago.”

Here is an approved list of CenterPoint’s major underground projects.