The CIP Explorer: what utilities plan to build, and how their plans change

25 Sep 2026

The CIP Explorer puts the capital plans of water, wastewater and stormwater utilities on one map. You can see the value of each plan, the projects in it and how it changed since the previous plan.

A capital improvement plan (CIP) is the list of projects that a utility plans to build in the next five to ten years. Each project has a budget for each year. WIN collects these plans and records each project line in its database.

The CIP Explorer shows all of this data in one place. It has two views: Overview and Timeline & Projects. The filters on the left apply to both views.

The Overview

The map shows the total CIP value in each state. Click a state to filter the page to that state. Click the state again to clear the filter. Click “% vs prior” to colour each state by the change since the previous plans.

The panel on the right has six tabs:

Narrative. A short analysis of the capital plans and the council meetings. Select a state to read about that state.
Value. A chart of the plan value by sector, application and sub-application. Click a segment to filter the page.
Utilities. The utilities with the largest plans.
Plan Change. How the newest plans differ from the previous plans, by application.
Procurement Dynamics. How the state regulates water construction and how its utilities buy it.
Definitions. The meaning of each term on the page.

Read a state in one minute

Select a state on the map. The Narrative tab gives you two short texts. The first text describes the capital plans: the total value, the largest applications and the largest projects. The second text describes the council record: the number of decisions, the main topics and the busiest boards. For example:

Arizona’s latest capital plans total $21.7B across 37 utilities — $11.4B water, $8.7B wastewater — down 0.2% on the prior generation for matched utilities.

Each text shows the date of its last update.

See how plans change

Most utilities publish a new CIP every one or two years. Each new plan adds projects, removes projects and changes budgets. The Plan Change tab compares the newest plan of each utility with its own previous plan.

The chart starts with the total of the previous plans and ends with the total of the newest plans. Each bar between them is one application. A blue bar shows value that the new plans added. A brown bar shows value that the new plans cut. For example, the newest plans in Arizona total $15.2B. The previous plans total $15.7B, a change of −3.5%.

WIN compares only the money inside the window of each plan. When two plans cover a different number of years, WIN compares the same number of years from each plan. Thus, a longer plan does not look like growth.

Choose a plan generation

Use the Plan published control at the top of the page to select the plans you see. “Latest” shows the newest plan of each utility. Select a year, for example 2025, to see only the plans published in that year. The control applies to both views.

Know how a state buys

The Procurement Dynamics tab describes the rules for water construction in the state. It tells you which laws control procurement, which delivery methods utilities can use, for example design-build or CMAR, and which approvals a project needs.

Find the projects

Click Timeline & Projects. The chart shows the planned spending in each year, by sector. The table below lists each project with its utility, its plan, its status and its total value.

The “vs prior plan” column compares each project with the same project in the previous plan. A “NEW” badge marks a project that was not in the previous plan. When a filter is active, the table shows the new projects first, with the largest at the top.

Tick a project to see its budget in each plan generation on the chart. You can also export the table to Excel.

Example: find the largest new wastewater projects in Texas

Open the CIP Explorer.
Click Texas on the map.
In the Sector filter, select Wastewater.
Click Timeline & Projects.
Read the projects with the “NEW” badge at the top of the table.
Click a project name to see the project and its source plan.

Where to find it

All WIN users have access. In the main menu, open Opportunities and then click CIP Explorer.

Open the CIP Explorer

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