Underground Distribution

Underground Distribution all about installing underground cables, splice and terminate cables, install and connect padmount transformers, fuse lines, and maintain and troubleshoot underground circuits. It is about specialized safety preparing the job site, test for gases, and enter confined spaces. Compared with overhead lines, work on underground systems is more complicated to install and more expensive to repair when that’s required. Linemen must learn another set of job skills because underground work uses specialized techniques, materials, tools, terminology, equipment, and safety precautions. Neighborhoods that seem to be free of electric wires and poles have underground power lines. When low-voltage lines are underground but transformers and medium-voltage lines are overhead, this is called a hybrid overhead/underground distribution system. When the system is entirely underground, the medium-voltage lines are also buried, while transformers are mounted on ground-level pads or in underground vaults. The latter system is more common in densely populated areas and in certain housing developments.