The project is still on budget when the infrastructure lead tells the steering committee that the upgrade it depends on is not in this year’s plan.
The sponsor thought the shared service had it covered, and the shared service thought the project would pay. Both teams have been reporting accurately against budgets that do not cover the same scope.
PJM, the largest U.S. grid operator, is dealing with a much larger cost-allocation dispute. It was supposed to begin buying backstop capacity on September 30, and that did not happen.
FERC accepted the proposal but suspended its effective date for five months, to February 28, 2027, pending further proceedings. PJM says it will set the new dates later.
Cost allocation was one of several concerns. Regulators were not convinced the proposal would properly assign costs to the customers driving the need for new capacity.
The need for more power was understood, but how to assign the bill still needed work.
Inside a company it usually starts with a business case. A unit gets approval for a new platform on the savings it expects, and the project budget covers implementation. Operations will need more support capacity and infrastructure will have to pull an upgrade forward, but those costs sit in other budgets, so the case can look strong before anyone has agreed to fund what it depends on.
That does not make the investment a bad one. Shared infrastructure often serves several business units, the same way a grid upgrade can serve more than the newest customer, and charging all of it to whichever project triggered the work can mislead as much as leaving it out.
Someone still has to settle it before the date becomes a commitment. By the time the steering committee discovers the gap, an accounting question may already have become a schedule problem.
Before I commit to a delivery date, I want a one-page list of the material costs the project creates outside its own budget. Beside each one, the team carrying it confirms that the funding and capacity are in its plan, and that confirmation goes into the gate review. A line in the business case assuming someone else will pay does not count.
PJM’s problem is far more complicated than an internal budget discussion, but both illustrate how unresolved cost responsibility can hold up delivery. Agreeing that something needs to be built does not settle how the people who need it will share the cost.
On your last program, which cost landed in someone else’s budget, and when did they find out?
Utility Dive on FERC’s concerns: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/pjm-delays-backstop-procurement-ferc-data-center/831751/
