October 3, 2026 · Marion · Johnson · Elkhart · Lake · Porter · St. Joseph · NIPSCO · AES INDIANA · IM AEP

AES Indiana Rate Hike Rehearing Gets a March 2027 Date, Your January Bill Doesn't Wait

AES Indiana's rate hike rehearing finally has a March 2027 hearing date, but the $71 million increase still hits Central Indiana manufacturer bills in January regardless.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

The AES Indiana rate hike rehearing now has a confirmed evidentiary hearing date of March 11, 2027, at the PNC Center in Indianapolis, Marion County. That hearing will not stop the $71 million increase from landing on bills for about 533,000 Central Indiana customers starting in January. If you operate in AES Indiana's territory, budget for phase two now, because no one has asked a regulator to pause it.

The AES Indiana Rate Hike Rehearing Covers Two Issues, Your Bill Covers All of Them

A September 30 order from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission limits the rehearing to two issues: Google's Monrovia data center in Morgan County, and the BlackRock-led purchase of AES's parent company. The evidentiary hearing happens March 11, 2027, in Indianapolis. That hearing is where evidence gets presented, not where a ruling gets issued.

The $71 million increase keeps applying to your bill in the meantime. The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor never requested a stay on the increase, so there was nothing to pause. The IURC says rates stay subject to refund if a court later overturns the order, but how much would come back to your specific rate class, if anything, has not been decided.

Indiana Michigan Power has proposed a $59 million rate cut and is crediting data center load growth for it. The Citizens Action Coalition argues that same load growth should be lowering AES Indiana's rates too. That is their argument. It has not been proven inside AES's case. NIPSCO is absorbing a 20% increase of its own, and Duke is fighting an alleged $89 million over-collection claim, so the picture across Indiana's investor-owned utilities is mixed, not uniform.

There is a second clock running underneath this one. FERC is reviewing the BlackRock and GIP purchase of AES's parent, and five U.S. lawmakers have urged FERC to reject it, citing GIP's ownership of 40 data centers nationwide. If FERC rules on that purchase before the March hearing, the cost-of-capital assumptions baked into AES's rehearing could be outdated before the hearing even opens.

Have your energy manager model phase two against your actual rate class and your actual demand profile. A residential figure like $8.50 a month tells you nothing about what your facility will pay. Treat any eventual refund as upside, and keep it out of your 2027 budget entirely.

Amazon's $100 Million Greenwood Robotics Plant Opens a Supplier Question

Amazon is putting more than $100 million into a 585,000 square foot robotics plant in Greenwood, Johnson County, at 1175 Collins Road. That brings about 300 skilled manufacturing and engineering jobs averaging almost $100,000 a year. Amazon is buying and equipping an existing building rather than building new.

CEO Andy Jassy has said Amazon may sell robotics to outside customers beyond its own fulfillment network. Amazon has not said what Greenwood will build, and it has not said whether it will source materials or components locally. If you supply metals or coatings near Johnson County, watch for direct supplier outreach from Greenwood before you count this as a prospect. Until that outreach shows up, it is a building, not a customer.

Supersede's Bristol Plant Bets Marine Plywood Prices Have Pushed RV Makers to Switch

Supersede opened its 100,000 square foot plant in Bristol, Elkhart County, with 65 first-phase jobs, and it is now shipping product. The plant makes Marine Board, a recycled polypropylene panel designed to replace plywood or OSB one for one. Bristol is targeting about 40 million square feet of output a year across eight production lines.

The anchor customer is Coachmen, a Forest River brand, located about 10 miles away in Middlebury, for travel trailer floors. Supersede CEO Sean Petterson estimates marine plywood prices are up about 50%, which is the case he is making to every other RV builder in the region. Coachmen's involvement puts Supersede inside one of the three largest RV manufacturers in the country, even with Patrick Industries' Elkboard already competing for the same floors.

If plywood or OSB sits in your bill of materials, request a qualification sample. Compare installed cost, not just panel price, because a cheaper panel that requires different fasteners or framing can erase its own savings fast.

Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: When will the AES Indiana rate hike rehearing be decided? A: The evidentiary hearing is scheduled for March 11, 2027, in Indianapolis, and that hearing is where evidence gets presented, not where a ruling comes down. The IURC's order will come sometime after that hearing, and the current $71 million increase keeps applying to your bill the entire time.

Q: Why is my AES Indiana electric bill going up in January? A: AES Indiana's phase two rate increase takes effect in January regardless of how the rehearing turns out, because the Consumer Counselor never requested a stay on the increase. Rates stay subject to refund if a court later overturns the order, but how much comes back to your rate class, if anything, is still unresolved.

Q: Is there a cheaper alternative to marine plywood for RV floors? A: Supersede's Marine Board, a recycled polypropylene panel made in Bristol, Indiana, is marketed as a one-for-one replacement for plywood and OSB, with CEO Sean Petterson pointing to marine plywood prices up about 50% as the reason to switch. If plywood sits in your bill of materials, request a qualification sample and compare installed cost, not just panel price, before you decide.

If you want a closer look at what it actually costs to intervene in a case like this one, and what intervention delivers for a facility in your position, read our breakdown of utility rate case intervention for commercial and industrial operators. For the earlier chapter on the FERC side of the AES ownership question, see our coverage of the AES Indiana BlackRock buyout reaching FERC.

01Marion · Indianapolis

AES Indiana Rate Hike: IURC Sets 2027 Rehearing Schedule

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has scheduled a rehearing on AES Indiana's $71 million rate increase (Cause No. 46258), but the two-phase hike (already adding less than $1/month since July 27 and set to add about $8.50/month starting in January) will be fully in effect on the bills of AES's roughly 533,000 Central Indiana customers long before the March 11, 2027 evidentiary hearing at the PNC Center in Indianapolis. The rehearing, pushed by the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor and the Citizens Action Coalition, is limited to new evidence on Google's Monrovia data center project in Morgan County and the BlackRock-led consortium's acquisition of AES Corporation.

Impact: Indiana Michigan Power just proposed a $59 million rate CUT for its Indiana customers, crediting the exact same mechanism, data center load growth, that CAC says AES should be using to lower rates instead of raise them, making AES an outlier among Indiana's investor-owned utilities even as NIPSCO absorbs a 20% hike and Duke Energy fights an alleged $89 million over-collection claim. The rehearing is also racing a parallel FERC review of the BlackRock/GIP acquisition, where five U.S. lawmakers have urged rejection citing GIP's ownership of 40 data centers, meaning AES's cost-of-capital assumptions could become obsolete mid-rehearing if FERC rules first.
Watch: Settlement parties' testimony is due Oct. 23, 2026, and the full evidentiary hearing is set for March 11, 2027 at the PNC Center in Indianapolis.
For the huddle: Given I&M is proposing a rate cut from the same data-center load growth AES cites to justify a rate hike, are we certain which utility territory and rate trajectory our own facilities actually sit in?

02Johnson · Greenwood

UPDATE: Amazon's $100M Robotics Plant Lands in Greenwood

Amazon confirmed last week it will invest more than $100 million in a new 585,000-square-foot robotics manufacturing hub in Greenwood, Indiana, located across I-65 from an existing Amazon fulfillment center. Paired with a facility announced this summer in Austin, Texas, the Greenwood plant will double Amazon's robot-making footprint to four sites nationwide (joining two in Massachusetts) and is expected to create about 300 skilled manufacturing and engineering jobs averaging nearly $100,000 a year.

Impact: Symbotic, which runs Walmart's automation network on a $22.5 billion backlog, faces the clearest competitive threat here: CEO Andy Jassy has said Amazon may start selling robotics to outside customers, which would turn Greenwood from an internal cost center into a platform competing with Symbotic, FANUC, ABB and Yaskawa. The under-reported detail is that Amazon is buying and equipping an existing building at 1175 Collins Road rather than building new, a lower-capex optionality play that suggests Greenwood is a specialized production node for specific robot types, not a flagship campus like Austin.
Watch: Whether Amazon follows through on Jassy's stated intent to sell robotics to outside industrial customers, a move that would likely trigger a Phase 2 expansion announcement within 3-5 years.
For the huddle: If Amazon does start selling robotics components externally the way Jassy has hinted, could Greenwood become a customer for our metals and coatings supply rather than just a competitor for our welding and CNC talent?

03Elkhart · Bristol

Supersede Opens 100,000-SF Plant in Bristol, Serving Elkhart's RV Cluster

Engineered-materials startup Supersede opened a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Bristol, Indiana in mid-September, its second U.S. plant after Phoenix, Arizona, to supply recycled-polypropylene 'Marine Board' composite decking to Elkhart County's RV makers. CEO Sean Petterson says the plant (backed by a $5 million Closed Loop Partners catalytic loan) will employ 65 in its first phase, targeting 40 million square feet of annual capacity across eight production lines, anchored by a July 1 partnership with Coachmen RV to put Marine Board into its Catalina travel trailer floors.

Impact: Patrick Industries' 'Elkboard' composite panel line, acquired via Elkhart Composites in February 2025, is the direct incumbent already supplying Thor, Forest River and Winnebago at scale, making Supersede's Coachmen deal a deliberate flanking move into an OEM not locked into Patrick's ecosystem. Stacked U.S. tariffs of 35-43% on Chinese plywood plus Section 232 timber duties have pushed marine plywood prices up roughly 50%, while NGO campaigns from Earthsight and Mighty Earth targeting Thor, Forest River and Winnebago's meranti wood sourcing give OEMs a sustainability reason to switch alongside the cost case.
Watch: Whether other Elkhart OEMs (Thor, Forest River, Winnebago, Jayco, Keystone) follow Coachmen's lead and convert additional model lines as Supersede's three-phase capacity ramp proceeds.
For the huddle: With marine plywood prices up roughly 50% and NGO sourcing pressure building on wood suppliers, where in our own bill of materials could a recycled-composite substitute like Supersede's Marine Board cut both cost volatility and sourcing risk?

04Lake · Porter · Whiting, Burns Harbor

Cleveland-Cliffs: Fatality, Ontario Idling, and Indiana Workers Left on Contract Extensions

After 30-day contract extensions expired Oct. 1, tens of thousands of USW-represented steelworkers at US Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs, including those at Cliffs' Burns Harbor Works in Indiana, remain on rolling 48-hour extensions that let management terminate the agreement with two days' notice. Cleveland-Cliffs confirmed a worker death (53-year-old Jeffrey Smith) at its Monessen, Pennsylvania coke plant and announced it will indefinitely idle finishing operations at its Stelco plant in Hamilton, Ontario, threatening up to 500 jobs; in Indiana, more than 800 USW members remain locked out of BP's Whiting refinery since March 19, and Cliffs' Burns Harbor Works lost 28-year-old Jonathan Stepp in an Aug. 13 accident, the fifth steel-sector worker death in just over a year.

Impact: Nippon Steel's completed $14.9 billion acquisition of US Steel gives Cliffs' main bargaining counterpart a far stronger balance sheet, while Cleveland-Cliffs posted a roughly $1.4 billion GAAP net loss for 2025, and mini-mill rivals Nucor and Steel Dynamics, the latter headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, carry none of the legacy coke and blast-furnace overhead driving Cliffs' cuts, positioning them to gain share. Ottawa reportedly offered Cleveland-Cliffs financial support to keep Hamilton running and the company turned it down, a refusal that exposes Cliffs to potential Investment Canada Act enforcement over the employment commitments tied to its original Stelco acquisition approval.
Watch: The next 48-hour contract extension deadline at US Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs, and any OSHA findings on the Monessen Coke Plant fatality that could ripple into Cliffs' blast-furnace supply chain.
For the huddle: With Cliffs' balance sheet strained and Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics positioned to gain share, have we stress-tested our steel sourcing contracts for a scenario where a Cliffs facility goes down on 48 hours' notice?

05St. Joseph · South Bend

Studebaker Museum's 'Motor City, Indiana' Exhibit Reclaims Northern Indiana's Auto Legacy

The Studebaker National Museum in South Bend opened 'Motor City, Indiana' on Aug. 7, running through Jan. 31, 2027, an America 250 exhibit tracing how South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart and nearby towns built an early automotive hub before Detroit claimed the 'Motor City' name: spotlighting Studebaker alongside lesser-known manufacturers American Simplex Motor Car Company, Elcar, Pratt-Elkhart and Milburn, and the immigrant workforce that built the region's industrial base.

Impact: The exhibit's own backyard just lived a modern echo of its history: GM confirmed its exit from the Samsung SDI battery joint venture in New Carlisle on Aug. 11, 2026, handing Samsung SDI sole ownership as it pivots the plant from EV cells to grid-storage batteries, collapsing what St. Joseph County called the largest single investment in 75 years in under three years. That mirrors Studebaker itself abandoning its own 'Buzz Wagon' electric vehicles in 1911 after market demand shifted, a 115-year-old EV pivot story playing out again in the same corridor the museum isn't currently programming around.
Watch: Samsung SDI's targeted Dec. 31, 2027 substantial-completion date for the converted New Carlisle energy-storage plant, and whether final job-count figures fall short of the 1,700 positions GM's original EV-cell plan had promised.
For the huddle: Now that New Carlisle's battery plant has pivoted from EV cells to grid storage, are we positioned to supply Samsung SDI's energy-storage production line the way we'd have supplied an EV gigafactory, or do we need a different sales pitch entirely?

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