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Underground Arizona
Underground Arizona is a non-profit formed to centralize information and educate the public about the rich policy, legal, and investment history of underground electric utilities in Arizona.
Problem: Information Asymmetry
Most information about the undergrounding of utilities reaches the public through the utility companies themselves and not an unbiased source. This creates a problem wherein incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information is presented to and accepted by the public as fact.
Example 1: The utilities regularly tell the public that the only way to underground electric lines is with outside funding, like a new property tax district or funds from a municipality or business. This is inaccurate. This exact issue was litigated in the 1970s and the utilities lost at . Since then, many utilities have placed or replaced underground distribution and transmission infrastructure through the normal ratemaking process.
Example 2: The utilities regularly tell the public that underground electric lines costs 10-20x more than over head electric lines (e.g. ). However, in their regulatory filings, these cost differentials are half or less than what they claim publicly (e.g. ). Moreover, that the total cost of ownership of underground lines can be competitive with the total cost of ownership of overhead lines, especially when accounting for improved reliability and resilience to major storms. There are recent examples from around the state of cost differentials of only 2-3x and that is without accounting for reliability and resiliency savings.
Solution: Information Symmetry
We formed Underground Arizona to document and share findings like these with you, the public, to help you fight for the future of your community with as accurate of information as is possible.
Decisions should be made with accurate information.
Over the coming weeks and months, we will add more of our research and analysis to this website.
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