Florida Power & Light finishes swapping in first phase of underground power lines in Northwest Florida
This week, the first 131 homes are benefitting from a new Florida Power & Light (FPL) effort to underground power lines in Northwest Florida, swapping out old overhead lines that were more vulnerable to storm and vegetation damage.
These efforts focused on the Myrtle Grove community near Pensacola, Fla., acting as a pilot program as FPL searches for the most cost-effective ways to pursue the modernization effort and improve reliability along the way. The company intends to underground lines in additional northwestern neighborhoods throughout its service area.
Many of these neighborhoods were added to FPL’s service area once it folded the more than 500,000 customers of what was formerly Gulf Power into its umbrella in 2019. While those customers only began receiving service under the FPL name as of this year, the company reported that their service reliability had improved by more than 50 percent since the 2019 integration.
