How a Transmission Monitor Could Lower CT Electric Bills

Connecticut ratepayers are already feeling the squeeze, and a closer look at the electric bill explains part of why. The cost of transmission, the long-distance power lines that carry electricity from generators to homes and businesses across the region, has more than doubled as a share of the average customer bill since 2005, climbing from 10 percent to 24 percent. That shift didn’t happen by accident, and it isn’t going away without a fight.

A major driver is the surge in spending on Asset Condition Projects, or ACPs, the regional term for refurbishing and replacing aging grid infrastructure. Across New England, annual ACP costs exploded from $58 million in 2016 to $1.2 billion in 2024. Connecticut alone had 18 such projects under construction as of last fall, carrying an estimated price tag of more than $1 billion, with 12 additional projects in the pipeline.

Ratepayers foot these bills. That would be more defensible if the spending were rigorously vetted. It isn’t.

ACPs currently pass through a review process run by ISO-New England’s Planning Advisory Committee. But transmission companies routinely submit projects to that committee as few as 90 days before construction begins, leaving almost no time for meaningful scrutiny. States and consumer advocates face a steep informational disadvantage against utilities that have spent years assembling their proposals. The result is predictable: not a single ACP has ever been modified or rejected by the advisory committee. Every one of Connecticut’s 18 active projects received, at best, a cursory review before shovels hit the ground.

The problem isn’t just the lack of oversight. It’s what that oversight failure allows. Many ACPs simply swap out old equipment for new equipment of roughly the same capacity, missing the chance to use modern technology to expand capacity or reduce future costs. In some cases, projects may be overbuilt, generating returns for utility shareholders without proportionate benefit to customers. In others, a failure to plan ahead could leave the grid unable to accommodate the renewable generation and electrification that Connecticut has committed to pursuing, forcing more expensive fixes later.

Both failure modes cost ratepayers money. Neither gets caught under the current process.

Change is, for the first time, actually arriving. ISO-New England has created a new function called the Asset Condition Reviewer, or ACR, responding to sustained criticism of how the region has handled ACP oversight. The ACR represents a meaningful shift in approach, at least in principle.

But reformers and consumer advocates argue that the ACR alone isn’t sufficient. What Connecticut and the broader New England region need, they contend, is a fully independent transmission monitor with the authority, resources, and technical expertise to scrutinize projects before commitments are made, not after contracts are signed. Such an entity would evaluate whether proposed ACPs are correctly sized for actual grid needs, whether alternative approaches could achieve the same reliability goals at lower cost, and whether projects are designed to serve the grid’s long-term requirements rather than a utility’s short-term construction pipeline.

The stakes are substantial. Billions of dollars in ACP spending receive approval across the region each year with neither genuine evaluation nor connection to New England’s broader goal of meeting rising electricity demand affordably. With electrification accelerating, demand on the grid will only increase. The decisions made now about how to upgrade the system will shape ratepayer bills for decades.

Connecticut has a particular reason to pay attention. The state’s 18 active ACPs represent a significant share of the regional total, and the 12 projects still in the planning phase will move toward construction under whatever review process exists when they get there. If that process remains as thin as it has been, Connecticut customers will keep paying for infrastructure that was never seriously questioned.

Energy affordability has become a live political issue in Hartford. Lawmakers and regulators who want to demonstrate they are serious about it have an obvious place to start: demand that transmission spending face the kind of independent, expert review that other major public expenditures receive. Consumers should pay for reliability. They shouldn’t pay for excess.