The Dutch national electricity grid operator Tennet is to place a number of 380,000 volt electricity cables underground, reports Saturday’s Volkskrant.

State-owned Tennet claims this is the first time in the world that such high voltage cables will be laid underground, the paper says.
The experiment has been requested by the government and will involve 12 heavily insulated cables which will be placed three metres underground on a 20 kilometre route in the urban area around Amsterdam. The aim is partly to reduce visual pollution.
The cost of the underground cable is considerably higher than the tradition overhead cable – €12.3m per kilometre compared with €2.3m, according to the Volkskrant.