The SCC, which is down to two members and has been waiting for the General Assembly to elect a third since February, said it approved the latest proposal only because the law gave it no choice.

Dominion acknowledged that it did not perform a cost-benefit analysis in the case, but said the program is valuable to customers because it reduces the number of downed, dangerous lines after a storm, the work necessary to repair them and the length of time for outages.

“The primary focus of this program is how do we reduce the amount of time to recover from these long-duration storm events,” said Alan Bradshaw, director of the program for Dominion.

“What we’re trying to do is eliminate work,” said Bradshaw, who contends the program will allow the company to move repair crews across the state more quickly and efficiently after a hurricane or other major weather event.

Dominion estimates that the program ultimately will reduce the length of major outages by 40 to 50 percent, or five days instead of nine after a big storm.

“That’s significant for those customers,” Bradshaw said.

However, the SCC order said the program helps a small fraction of Dominion’s 2.4 million customers, while spreading the cost over all of them.