Eversource Energy

Eversource is now a pure-play regulated electric and gas utility: it sold the water business, is handing over offshore wind, and fixed its balance sheet. What's left is a five-year, $26.5 billion grid build whose payoff management says doesn't arrive until 2027. How much of the $26.5 billion build is already earning a return?

• Eversource has finished turning itself into a pure-play pipes and wires utility.

  It closed the Aquarion water sale in June, is handing over offshore wind, and now sits above the credit level rating agencies require. Every dollar of future profit depends on regulators letting it earn a return on the grid it builds. How much of the $1.7 billion went to paying down debt?

• The growth is back-loaded, and management says so plainly.

  FERC's March order cut the transmission return and pulled this year's guidance down by about $70 million. Management calls 2026 'a year of transformation' and puts the inflection in 2027, when rate cases and storm cash land.

• The biggest regulatory wins are coming through trimmed.

  Connecticut approved about $870 million of the storm costs asked for, denying the carrying charges on that money. The CL&P rate case filed in July seeks $451 million — the first in about eight years, and in an election year. How does the CL&P request compare with recent PURA decisions?