Every dollar spent on the grid eventually reaches a customer’s bill. Jeff Dennis made that simple fact the starting point for a more demanding question: are we choosing the transmission investments that deliver the most value?
His pitch put interregional transmission at the center of the affordability debate. Modeling commissioned by the Electricity Customer Alliance found substantial potential savings when transmission could be selected where it offered the most cost-effective solution. Yet projects that connect regions must also cross permitting jurisdictions and planning processes that do not always fit together. The result can be a system that struggles to approve its most useful connections while smaller projects move ahead with less scrutiny.
Dennis’s response combined permitting reform, fair cost allocation, and a broader pool of investors. Large customers willing to fund generation and transmission could bring additional capital while helping protect existing ratepayers from costs they did not create. The governing principle was competition among solutions: test the alternatives, establish who benefits and who pays, and build what best meets the underlying need. More spending is easy to propose. Better value is the standard customers deserve.
