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It's no future tech - building electricity transfer and distribution underground is a perfectly standard thing to do, particularly in European cities. Where I live, even countryside 20 kV distribution lines are being dug into ground, to avoid trees falling on the wires in winter and subsequent power cuts, and to reduce maintenance cost (no need to clear trees and vegetation from around the lines).

There are some limitations; for instance, on long transfer lines underground - we're talking about 100 km here - you may need to convert to DC in between because underground cables have stronger reactive components which makes voltage control difficult.



20kV is not very much, the one in the picture is probably 275 or 400kV.

The pylon shown is the end one — the wires on the left side go down to the ground. It's probably on the edge of a city somewhere, within British cities electricity distribution is buried.


Yes, 20 kV is not much, but also 400 kV can be underground. What I meant is that even with such low voltage as 20 kV and even in countryside it may be worth it to bury the cable.




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