There are a lot of interesting differences in the basic grid designs and layouts that are a result of the 120 vs 240 voltage differences. Everything from number of transformers, to distances between substations, to the required line separation and clearance from ground.

It all results in fundamental cost differences, that were originally calculated based on density and distances, with US being low density/ large distance and the opposite for the UK.

I'm sure there's related consequences with line burial, but I don't know if that's the reason it's so common in the UK.

Because ya'll don't have any trees.

Wooden utility poles are made from a single piece of wood, usually the trunk of a pine tree. It's cheap to toss a bunch of them on the back of a truck and drive them to wherever, but they're typically longer than a cargo container, so putting them on a ship is annoying.

The forests in North America has lots of tall, straight pine trees but there are fewer forests in Europe and what forests there are tend to have more deciduous forests, where the trees are shorter, narrower, and ... squigglier.

You could have shorter poles and fit them into cargo containers more easily, but now you're stuck with short utility poles. Concrete or metal utility poles are a thing, but they're more expensive.

Concrete poles are almost as cheap as wood, once the longer lifetime and lower maintenance are appointed for.

And anyway, Europe has plenty of farms pine/spruce forests. That Ikea furniture doesn't just appear.

Europe buries power lines because they're considered ugly.

IKEA furniture isn't generally made from large, straight individual pine trees though. They're pretty notorious for using particleboard

All, wooden, concrete and metallic poles over a concrete block are common in Europe. Sometimes is buried, other not. Maybe is not the best solution where the phreatic water level is too high (i.e. most mediterranean cities in the coast).

I suspect this is a big component: uk population density: 281/km2; us population density:36/km2. Obviously not a perfect comparison because density is highly variable, but the US is just so so much more spread out than european countries.

Isn't this San Jose? Eastern end of Silicon Valley, population density in the thousands, and home of the super-rich?

1. Yes

2. I don’t think so. But the way way people describe the geography here is weird. Usually people say it’s the southern end.

3. It’s pretty sprawly, car is king, generally the threat of earthquakes and nimbyism has resulted in low density. I doubt ‘thousands’ though I’m not clear on your units.

4. Highly doubtful. The super-rich mostly live in the suburbs or exurbs of SJ, where it’s cooler (temperature wise) and less urban. Los Gatos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Woodside, Menlo Park, Atherton, etc.

The electrical grids in general were fundamentally designed differently from country to country, including the voltage difference.

That took into account what was cost effective from the perspective of large scale deployment, and then individual elements are designed from (and are intertwined with) everything downstream from that. So even if two cities (one US and one UK) were/are nearly identical, the resulting grid is going to end up being laid out very differently.

The neighborhood in question was built in the late 1960s, underground has been the default for a few decades now but this neighborhood (along with many others through SJ) is just all old construction. There's no real justification for moving the power underground, even in rich neighborhoods most streets still have power via poles unless they're relatively new.

Electrical distribution plant generally follows the same code everywhere in the country. Also when SJ was first electrified it was a rural area.