Nashville lawmakers are taking a hard look at how the city builds its power grid going forward. A bill moving through Metro Council would require any newly built streets in the city to have utilities, including power lines, buried underground instead of strung overhead.
The push comes months after a brutal winter storm knocked out power for more than 230,000 customers across the area. It also lines up with a separate effort already underway. Nashville Electric Service is preparing to launch a pilot program that will bury power lines in four Nashville neighborhoods.
Council Member Joy Styles, who sponsored the bill, says this is just the latest step in a fight she’s been waging for years to make the city’s grid more resilient. She pointed to the zero degree storm back in 2022 as the moment that got her working directly with NES on long term fixes, long before this year’s storm added new urgency.
“So for us, even before Fern came through, I’ve been working with NES for the last three years because of what happened to us during the zero degree storm back in 2022,” Styles said. “So with all the development that we have, it only makes sense. We are putting so much pressure on the grid. We have to come up with solutions.”
Under the bill, any new streets built in Nashville would be required to have utilities buried from the start rather than added later. Styles acknowledged she’s heard pushback from people concerned about cost, since burying lines often means cutting through rock and stone, but she isn’t backing down from the idea.
“People saying it’s cost prohibitive because we have to blast through all of the stone, but here’s the reality: They make it happen downtown,” she said. “You hate when you have to make someone do something when you know it’s the right thing to do, but we really don’t have a choice the fallout from this storm has been so significant.”
NES announced its own $9 million pilot program back in April, targeting four different neighborhoods for underground power line conversions. Styles says she’s encouraged by that progress, but she’s realistic about the limits of retrofitting the whole city.
“Trying to bury all of the existing lines, that’s a lot,” she said. “As a city, I know that we’re not going to be willing to do that.”
The bill cleared the Planning Commission Thursday night and now heads back to Metro Council, where it will face two final votes before becoming law.