Undergrounding Philadelphia

[rowhomecity]

There are a few different ways to tackle the issue. And by and large it would be part of a City Beautiful movement. It would require creative financing.

I am not sure of the exact cost, it is not cheap. But it is doable for sure. Philadelphia maybe should look at this 10 years from now. Today though Philadelphia just is not rebounded enough to consider it on the table. TBH.

Meaning we have bigger fish to fry. Although yes, on a list of City Beautiful agendas we should consider this. But there are way more things we can do. Like encourage historic preservation through tax incentives, etc.

[AJNEOA]

Originally Posted by southbound_295

Well, sooner or later, as they dig the ditches for the cabling, someone will dig up something of historical interest. As soon as that happens, the archeologists will decend on the project.

Just like Columbus Square Park in Passyunk Square. The park renovation has been fully funded for three years and we're waiting for some excavation that will seemingly never happen.

[southbound_295]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

Just like Columbus Square Park in Passyunk Square. The park renovation has been fully funded for three years and we're waiting for some excavation that will seemingly never happen.

It's like when they started digging for the Vine St. Expressway & they found a long-forgotten cemetery. Oops! Then there was the excavation for the buildings where George Washington lived. Philadelphia keeps the archeologists busy.

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by FrankInPhilly

But those net zero buildings need grid connections, either for input (when solar isn't sufficient) or output (to sell excess to utilities). In the urban context at least, they'll still need to be connected to the grid. Or am I missing something??

I believe that's true of most net zero properties today, but as that technology becomes even more efficient, it's probable utility networks will no longer be necessary.

[car0401]

It might be possible that future homes use batteries to store the surplus solar energy to use at night, I know Tesla has been developing their own battery for that purpose
https://www.tesla.com/en_NZ/powerwall (Im in NZ so idk if the link works)

It would be interesting to see how that technology could be implemented on a large scale, maybe we could get neighborhoods of gridless houses

[Pilot1]

Originally Posted by car0401

It might be possible that future homes use batteries to store the surplus solar energy to use at night, I know Tesla has been developing their own battery for that purpose
https://www.tesla.com/en_NZ/powerwall (Im in NZ so idk if the link works)

It would be interesting to see how that technology could be implemented on a large scale, maybe we could get neighborhoods of gridless houses

I would love to be energy independent from the Utility companies. I guarantee electric companies are working against technology that would allow this. It makes a lot of sense to power our homes, and other buildings with solar power, and the battery technology, when available, to store the energy for night, and cloudy days. You would need a generator back up though to handle extended times of no, or little sun.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Duderino

I believe that's true of most net zero properties today, but as that technology becomes even more efficient, it's probable utility networks will no longer be necessary.

I think for that to happen, you'd need to retrofit just about all of the existing housing stock so that it meets net-zero-energy standards - which are different from passive-house requirements, and there are a number of those projects (including some retrofits) under way.

I don't see a retrofit on that large a scale happening soon.

Besides, "net zero energy" doesn't mean no energy is consumed; it means that the energy the home consumes and the energy it produces cancel each other out. There are times when a net-zero home will consume more power than it produces, and times when the opposite is the case. Perhaps every home will have its own storage battery, but actually, I think that the grid would be a more efficient way to handle the imbalance, especially since it could send power from homes producing it to those consuming it.

Originally Posted by southbound_295

It's like when they started digging for the Vine St. Expressway & they found a long-forgotten cemetery. Oops! Then there was the excavation for the buildings where George Washington lived. Philadelphia keeps the archeologists busy.

Just like Rome - which took about 25 years to complete its first subway line because the excavators kept running into ancient Roman structures and objects.

This will actually be less of a problem in the newer and less historic outlying neighborhoods. And even some neighborhoods with lots of history will find that digging the trenches to bury the power cables unearths very little on certain streets; most of Germantown's architecturally significant stuff, for instance, lies along Germantown Avenue, which already has buried utilities.

Adding to the cost of any burial project would be the cost of the distribution lines to individual residences.