How many times can a company fail before we’re allowed to call it what it is?

Because that’s where we’re at with New York’s utility companies.

For years, residents have watched their electric bills climb. For years, local governments have been told growth is coming. For years, developers have been encouraged to build housing. For years, state leaders have pushed electrification, data centers, and economic development projects that require more power.

And for years, the companies responsible for delivering that power apparently looked at all of it and decided it wasn’t urgent. How bad is it? New York Independent System Operator’s 2026 outlook paints a bleak picture.

Across Upstate New York, developers are being told projects may require millions of dollars in utility upgrades. Housing developments that communities desperately need are being delayed, scaled back, or abandoned altogether because nobody can get a straight answer about whether enough power exists to serve them. Economic development officials are finding out halfway through projects that electrical capacity isn’t available where everyone said it would be.

The most maddening part isn’t that mistakes were made. It’s that absolutely none of this was unpredictable.

The utility companies knew the population was growing in places like Victor and Farmington. They knew........

© Finger Lakes Times