Meredith Fowlie on California’s Costly Complicated Push to Bury Power Lines

California’s Undergrounding Conundrum

November 18, 2025

Politico

Meredith Fowlie, Energy Institute Faculty Director, discusses how California’s plan to bury power lines to reduce wildfire risk is hitting major cost, terrain and regulatory challenges in Politico.

“‘We’re fundamentally talking about hard tradeoffs between mitigating wildfire risk, managing reliability impacts and managing costs, which often translate into rate impacts,’ said Meredith Fowlie, faculty director of the University of California, Berkeley, Energy Institute at Haas.”

Photo: politico.com