FPL’s Storm Secure Underground Program, launched in 2018, is one of the ways we’re continuously working to enhance the reliability of service to our customers in good weather and bad. The program replaces overhead neighborhood power lines with underground lines to improve resiliency during hurricanes and severe weather and also enhance reliability during day-to-day conditions.
After the historic hurricane seasons of 2004-05, when seven hurricanes affected our customers, FPL began making significant investments to strengthen our electric system and make the grid more resilient to severe weather. When Hurricane Irma struck in 2017, our hardening efforts helped significantly reduce damage to the grid and speed restoration for our customers. Still, we saw that the number one cause of outages during Irma was debris blowing into and trees falling onto our power lines.
The Storm Secure Underground Program analyzes data from past hurricanes, vegetation-related service interruptions and other reliability metrics to identify areas that would most benefit from having power lines placed underground.
We’ve completed hundreds of these neighborhood projects throughout our service area – and we plan to continue bringing the benefits of undergrounding to more of our customers in the years ahead.
Gulfshore Business – Weighing the costs, benefits of buring power lines in SWFL (Aug. 2, 2022)
WINK News – FPL working to bury power lines to protect them against strong storms (July 27, 2022)
WPTV Channel 5 – FPL installing underground power lines (May 28, 2022)
Miami’s Community Newspapers – Flickering lights in Pinecrest … a solution (April 12, 2022)
Charlotte Sun - FPL putting power lines underground in North Port, Charlotte (March 12, 2022)
WKRG News 5 This Morning - FPL putting power lines underground in Pensacola area (Oct. 21, 2021)
Suncoast News Network – FPL demonstrates underground power line installation (July 1, 2021)
WFTS Action News – FPL installing underground power lines in Sarasota (July 1, 2021)
WPTV Channel 5 – FPL installs underground power lines in Tequesta (April 29, 2021)
Spectrum News 13 – Preparing for storms with underground power lines (Oct. 27, 2020)
WFOR Channel 4 – Cutting down on power outages (Oct. 22, 2020)
Telemundo51 – Programa piloto de FPL para soterrar cables eléctricos en Miami Dade (Oct. 22, 2020)
WINK News – Moving power lines underground (Oct. 14, 2020)
WSVN 7 News Miami – FPL installs underground power lines in Hialeah neighborhood (Nov. 6, 2019)
The company has used several criteria to determine the location of these projects, including power lines' performance during Hurricanes Matthew and/or Irma, outages on power lines due to vegetation issues and performance of power lines during day-to-day operations.
Contact StormSecureUndergroundProgram@fpl.com if you have further questions on the Storm Secure Underground Program.