Why millions of Americans pay for unfinished electricity projects
Key takeaways
- Add ARY News on Google AAResize Millions of Americans are unknowingly financing electric grid projects before they get any benefit.
- Traditionally, utilities seeking to build expensive infrastructure projects have had to secure loans from banks and investors, and are only allowed to pass along those costs to customers after the projects are finished.
- But those projects also can be financed in advance under the so-called Construction Work In Progress (CWIP) incentive, a benefit that supercharges cash flow and reduces borrowing costs for electric utilities.
Why this matters: local context for readers following news across Pakistan and the region.
Add ARY News on Google AAResize Millions of Americans are unknowingly financing electric grid projects before they get any benefit.
Policy-makers, in an urgent bid to overhaul the nation’s aging electric grid, are increasingly letting utilities charge customers for power plants and transmission lines long before they’ve been built, boosting near-term bills in exchange for promised savings decades down the road, according to a Reuters review of regulatory disclosures.
The incentives aim to supercharge grid upgrades at a time of soaring demand from data centers that power artificial intelligence, but are also raising power bills for households and businesses already reeling from rising energy costs.