The $5 Billion Plan Has Reached Show-Your-Work

Five billion dollars ought to come with a reason longer than “the equipment.” New England is moving toward an arrangement in which proposed transmission spending gets an outside look at what needs replacing and whether the proposed fix makes sense. The astonishing innovation is asking before the money is gone.

Utility Dive reports that federal regulators approved a process for ISO New England to review utilities’ asset-condition transmission projects. The review is advisory. It will examine need, cost effectiveness and alternatives, with earlier opportunities for state input. Transmission owners plan roughly $5 billion in this spending through 2034. “Advisory” is doing a modest job beside a number with that many zeros.

Still, a modest job can matter. A utility proposes work; somebody else examines the explanation. That second step interrupts a very comfortable arrangement in which the party presenting the cost also gets to present necessity as a finished fact. It puts the question mark back where the dollar sign has been enjoying the room alone.

The distinction is already concrete. Eversource paused an $82.4 million project near Boston after a consultant questioned its near-term need. The company disputes that finding and argues for acting before equipment deteriorates or fails, including where inspection is difficult. That is an argument worth evaluating. Waiting for something to break is a lousy maintenance philosophy. So is treating the word “maintenance” as permission to stop evaluating anything.

The useful question lives between those two positions: why this work, at this cost, now? There is nothing anti-electricity about it. The lights do not become dimmer because an explanation has a supporting document. A transformer cannot detect disrespect in a state regulator’s request for alternatives.

The review’s formal role begins in January, following interim work this year. It will not turn every disputed project into an automatic rejection. That would merely replace one lazy answer with another. A system that asks for evidence might approve the project, change it or expose a weak case. All three outcomes require somebody to look beyond the impressive total.

We have already encountered the difference between a power-project list and working electricity. This is the spending version: a proposed replacement is a proposal, even when its heading sounds urgent. The noun does not supply the justification.

What makes the new arrangement useful is also what makes its lateness embarrassing. Billions in planned spending are reaching the stage where another party may ask to see the work. The utilities still get to make their case. They are simply acquiring an audience that can ask a second question.