ODOE Grant helps Forest Grove Take Electricity Underground

Power poles and the electric lines they hold are susceptible to falling trees and wind, car crashes, and wildfire. By putting the lines underground - commonly called undergrounding - the City of Forest Grove Light and Power Department is improving resilience in its community.

Recently, Forest Grove completed a project to move two-thirds of a mile of a main electricity line underground. Turning on the newly underground lines marked the first completed project through the Oregon Department of Energy's Grid Resilience Grant Program.

The project is located at the base of a ridge with a residential neighborhood and heavy wooded area adjacent to the Tillamook State Forest. The wooded and forested areas could provide fuel in the event of a wildfire, but activities like undergrounding lines are "grid hardening" and help to reduce the risks of wildfire and wildfire-caused damage. Grid hardening is part of the Resilience Pathway in the Oregon Energy Strategy.

When combined with another project, there are now three miles of underground lines along this county road. Undergrounding lines is just one of the grid-hardening measures the City of Forest Grove Light and Power District is taking. For example, they have also upgraded three of four aging substation transformers.

"We're in a constant state of keeping our system as hard as possible. We're always replacing products and aging out products," said Keith Hormann, Forest Grove Power and Light director. "Our belief is to continue investing into it [grid resilience]."

The success of the project is already speaking for itself. While under construction, the pre-existing line saw two power outages from tree damage and one lasted for 10 hours, said Hormann. Falling trees will no longer result in power outages for the neighborhood.

"This is one of the grants that actually gives extremely tangible results - and measurable," Hormann said. "We're going to eliminate power outages. That's going to show through in our numbers."

In addition to reducing wildfire risk and power outages, the city is also saving costs on vegetation removal along the stretches with undergrounded lines.

ODOE awarded Forest Grove $438,190 for the project.

"The cost of our power that we buy from BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) consumes about 55 percent of our budget. So, any increases, which we have no control over, we have to pass those costs on," Hormann said. "To a small utility, grant dollars coming in for projects is extremely important and valuable to us."

The Grid Resilience program created through the 2021 federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will make more projects like this one possible for utilities across the state. ODOE awarded 11 grants totaling $18 million for the first round of funding and announced nine utilities to receive $11.5 million in second round funding earlier this year.