Three simultaneous pressure points landed on Indiana's industrial base this week — and each one has a hard deadline attached. The AES Indiana rate case is back before the IURC with a September 17 preliminary hearing, triggered by a disclosure failure that goes well beyond a consumer affordability argument. Collapsed U.S.-Canada tariff talks have left 2,500 Indiana aluminum fabrication jobs in a holding pattern, with the 50% tariff line holding for now but the next negotiating round already in view. And THOR Industries just rewired its entire North American RV leadership structure from Elkhart, effective immediately. Here is what each one means for your operation.

AES Indiana / IURC: Why September 17 Is the Date to Watch

TEG Daily has been tracking the AES Indiana rate case for thirty days across ten episodes. Here is what is new.

The IURC granted a rehearing request from the Citizens Action Coalition after it came to light that AES Indiana executed a service agreement with Google for its Monrovia data center — more than a week before filing rebuttal testimony in its own rate case, and nearly a month before the evidentiary hearing — without disclosing this to regulators. That omission from sworn regulatory proceedings is the specific conduct that triggered the commission's unusual decision to reopen an already-decided case.

The Office of Utility Consumer Counselor's petition, filed by Consumer Counselor Abby Gray, targets a 40-basis-point ROE reduction from 9.5% to 9.1%, elimination of $15 million in vacant-position payroll recovery, and reversal of the $3 million rate case expense pass-through. Those are real dollars for every Marion County manufacturer on the AES grid.

The September 17 hearing is not simply an affordability replay, however. Watch whether the commission narrows scope to those four OUCC objections — or expands to include the Google-Monrovia disclosure issue and the BlackRock acquisition. Expansion means a longer, more disruptive timeline before a final revised order lands.

Layered on top of this: U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz sent a letter to the Energy Secretary and Interior Secretary on September 9 requesting a federal review of LEAP in Lebanon and Indiana's broader data center buildout — Meta's $10 billion campus, Amazon's $11 billion project, Google's $2 billion Fort Wayne campus. The unresolved question is whether hyperscale data center load gets its own rate class with dedicated cost recovery, or continues to be allocated across existing industrial and commercial rate classes. That determination has not been made in AES's current tariff, and the IURC's affordability report indicates it may be revisited before AES's next infrastructure filing.

If you signed the October 2025 AES Indiana settlement alongside Walmart and the City of Indianapolis, get legal representation monitoring that September 17 docket directly. The concessions you negotiated could be on the table again.

For deeper context on how data center cost allocation flows through to your bill, see Utility Cost Allocation for Data Centers: How Indiana Manufacturers Avoid Paying for Grid Buildout They Didn't Cause.

Indiana Aluminum: 2,500 Jobs and a Tariff Line That Held — For Now

U.S.-Canada trade talks collapsed in late August after Washington proposed cutting the tariff on Canadian primary aluminum from 50% to 25%, with a similar reduction on fabricated products. Those talks broke down. Washington responded with fresh 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods; Canada's dollar-for-dollar retaliation took effect September 8.

Indiana has 38 aluminum extrusion, rolling, and sheet facilities employing roughly 2,500 workers — a concentration that industry advocates cited directly in tariff coverage as significant national exposure. The 50% tariff line held. For now.

Here is the variable the tariff headline obscures. Alcoa's pending decision on whether to restart a fourth production line at its Warrick smelter near Evansville — Indiana's only primary aluminum facility, currently running two of five lines — is a $100 million evaluation that CEO Bill Oplinger acknowledged in April could take one to two years given deteriorated line conditions and long-lead electrical equipment procurement. The economics of that restart tighten or loosen materially depending on where the tariff lands in the next round of talks.

The bifurcation is the real story. Vertically integrated players like the Alcoa-Kaiser Warrick complex — Kaiser purchased the adjacent rolling mill from Alcoa in 2021 for $670 million and sources primary metal under a market-based supply agreement — have a cost moat that open-market Indiana extruders simply do not have. If the tariff rate moves in the next negotiating round, those two groups face completely different exposure.

Know which category your aluminum suppliers fall into before the next round of negotiations begins.

THOR Industries Restructures: What Elkhart County Suppliers Must Assess Before September 22

THOR just collapsed its previously announced two North American RV groups into a single unified operating group, effective immediately. Ken Walters, former Jayco President, now leads all of North American RV operations. Mike Ritchie becomes CFO of that unified group. Troy James replaces longtime Keystone RV President Jeff Runels.

CEO Bob Martin acknowledged directly that THOR's structure has been decentralized for decades and that this reorganization is aimed at cost savings and margin improvement. COO Todd Woelfer stated THOR would not simply pass rising costs to pressured dealers while waiting for a retail inflection. That sentence is the tell.

Here is the consequence that has not been widely named. Lippert Components and Patrick Industries — THOR's two dominant Indiana-based suppliers — now face a single unified THOR operating structure. THOR has not yet announced a consolidated procurement function, but a unified operating group typically precedes one. If your contracts are structured with individual THOR brand entities rather than at the enterprise level, your negotiating position changes when those contracts come up for renewal.

The competitive context makes the timing notable: Forest River filed a WARN Act notice closing its Bristol, Indiana Plant 63 — 105 jobs, effective September 17 — and Winnebago has cut its full-year earnings forecast. THOR is integrating while its two closest rivals are in cost-cutting mode.

The September 22 Q4 earnings call is the first hard test. Watch for any quantified synergy figures from Walters or Ritchie — that number tells you how aggressively they intend to move on supplier terms.

Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: What is the AES Indiana September 17 IURC rehearing actually about?

A: The IURC reopened the case because AES Indiana executed a service agreement with Google's Monrovia data center without disclosing it during sworn regulatory proceedings. The September 17 hearing will determine whether scope stays narrow — limited to the OUCC's four objections on ROE, vacant-position payroll, and rate case expenses — or expands to include the disclosure conduct and the BlackRock acquisition, which would extend the timeline before a final revised order.

Q: What does the collapsed U.S.-Canada tariff negotiation mean for Indiana aluminum manufacturers?

A: The 50% tariff line held after talks broke down, but the risk is not uniform. Vertically integrated producers with captive smelter access face different exposure than open-market extruders who source primary aluminum at market prices. Indiana facilities in that second category face the most cost volatility if the tariff rate changes in the next round of negotiations.

Q: What should THOR Industries suppliers do before the September 22 earnings call?

A: Audit whether your contracts are written with individual THOR brand entities or at the enterprise level. A unified operating group typically precedes consolidated procurement, and suppliers locked into brand-level terms may find their negotiating position weakened when those contracts come up for renewal. The September 22 call is the first place THOR may quantify the synergy targets — that number signals how aggressively they intend to move.

I'm Daniel Burke, CEO of Tactical Energy Group. One of the most important things I can do is stay on top of everything that changes the cost and reliability of power and the economics of making things in Indiana. That is what TEG Daily is — tracking the essential developments and bringing them to operators who need them.

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