DOI: 10.22982/NEXTWP.2022.9.7

Abstract

Installation and operation of power infrastructure is generally not preferred by local residents due to perceived economic, health, environmental, and landscape risks associated with it. This study investigates the public preferences for undergrounding high-voltage power transmission lines, which is the popular option to cope with conflicts related to transmission infrastructure. Undergrounding here means burying overhead transmission lines underground. However, undergrounding projects are very costly, which makes it hard for a local government to conduct by itself. Therefore, national level support is required to conduct transmission line undergrounding. When national fund is being used, considering heterogeneous public opinion is important as the public may have polarized attitude towards the policy. This study utilized the choice experiment and consumer choice model to investigate public preference for priorities and details of high-voltage power transmission line undergrounding policy. Latent class logit model, which can incorporate preference heterogeneity by dividing the sample into few classes, was utilized to investigate heterogeneous public preference. As a result, four distinct classes with difference preference structure were identified. The results show that strong heterogeneity was observed especially for the priority area for undergrounding. Moreover, heterogeneous public preference was associated with respondent’s key demographics and perceptions towards transmission infrastructure.