With AES Indiana facing a rehearing while NIPSCO, CenterPoint, and Duke Energy Indiana pushed through larger rate hikes, how much of the $71 million increase could land back on our bill if the allocation shifts?

Check which utility territory your facility sits in and review your current rate class. Citizens Action Coalition is arguing the approved settlement protected industrial rates while pushing the largest increase onto households, so if the rehearing reverses that allocation, industrial customers could absorb a larger share of the $71 million increase.

Could our operations plug into the industrial cluster forming around Duke Energy's new Taylorsville, St. Leon, and Fullerton Pike sites?

Taylorsville sits next to the Grillo's Pickles plant and the incoming King's Hawaiian bakery, forming an agri-food manufacturing cluster, while St. Leon is positioned for light manufacturing and distribution along I-74. Both sites have major utilities available and economic development teams actively marketing to new tenants.

If Amazon's Greenwood plant pays CNC operators and welders close to $100,000, what is our retention plan for skilled trades before 2028 hiring begins?

Amazon's average salary runs 40 to 80 percent above the $55,000 to $70,000 regional pay for CNC operators and welders, a gap wide enough to pull trades talent off any I-65 corridor shop floor. The hiring ramp is still two years out, which is the window to review your own wage scale.

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October 18, 2026 · Bartholomew · Johnson · NIPSCO · AES INDIANA · DUKE INDIANA · IM AEP

AES Indiana Rate Increase Rehearing, Duke Energy's New Industrial Sites, and Amazon's $100 Million Greenwood Plant

AES Indiana's rate increase rehearing is set for March 11, Duke Energy adds three Indiana industrial sites, and Amazon's $100M Greenwood plant pays near $100K.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

The AES Indiana rate increase rehearing now has a date. A one-day evidentiary hearing is set for March 11, and the schedule means the $71 million rate hike keeps collecting on your bill for months before any ruling lands. Duke Energy also added three new industrial sites to its development pipeline this week, and Amazon committed $100 million to a Greenwood robotics plant paying close to six figures a year. Three different fronts, regulatory, real estate, and labor, all moving at once.

01Statewide

AES Indiana Rate Increase Rehearing Set for March Amid Zay Settlement Fallout

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has locked in a one-day evidentiary hearing for March 11 on AES Indiana's $71 million rate increase, approved 3-1 back in June. Citizens Action Coalition is now arguing that a Google data center project in Monrovia, revealed only after the case record closed, undercuts the load growth that justified the increase in the first place, and that the approved settlement put the largest rate increase on households while industrial customers got a smaller share. Former IURC commissioner Andy Zay settled his wrongful termination lawsuit against Gov. Mike Braun's administration for $625,000 in August without any ruling on whether the firing was lawful, so the reconstituted commission's authority to even rehear the case remains unresolved.

Impact: AES Indiana's 12% rate hike ($17/month) is actually the smallest of the five major Indiana utilities currently raising rates under Braun's restructured IURC: NIPSCO hit customers with a 26.7% ($50/month) increase, CenterPoint 25% ($44/month), and Duke Energy Indiana 20% ($26/month), yet AES is the one facing a rehearing, a competitive and regulatory inconsistency worth tracking. Layer on an unresolved question of whether Zay's firing was lawful, and any adverse ruling against AES could be thrown out on procedural grounds before affordability is even litigated, while a second AES rate case (a separate $90.7 million settlement) runs in parallel, pushing a typical bill from $169/month in July 2025 toward $187.57/month by January 2027.
Watch: The one-day evidentiary hearing scheduled for March 11, and any appellate filing tied to the unresolved Zay firing that could challenge the IURC's authority to rule at all.
For the huddle: If the rehearing finds that AES Indiana's settlement shifted cost burden onto households while protecting industrial rates, could our facility's rate class be asked to absorb more of the increase once the record is corrected?

SourcesIndiana challenges AES $71M rate hike as bigger power bills hit before rehearing (thecooldown.com)

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02Bartholomew

Duke Energy Tags Taylorsville, St. Leon, and Fullerton Pike for 2026 Site Readiness Program

Duke Energy Indiana selected three properties for its Site Readiness Program on September 30: the Taylorsville Industrial Park in unincorporated Bartholomew County near U.S. 31 and I-65, the I-74 St. Leon Alig Site at the I-74/State Road 1 interchange in Dearborn County, and an 87-acre Fullerton Pike parcel along I-69 in Bloomington. The Taylorsville site sits directly next to the Grillo's Pickles plant that opened this year and a forthcoming King's Hawaiian bakery, positioning the parcels as an agri-food manufacturing cluster rather than a standalone land listing. The two owners, Force Holdings LLC and Palladin LLC, have no municipal annexation backstop in place, a coordination gap that has stalled prior Duke program sites elsewhere.

Impact: The Taylorsville site sits directly next to Irresistible Foods Group's recently opened $54 million Grillo's Pickles plant and a forthcoming $175 million King's Hawaiian bakery, making this less a standalone land listing than a bid to build an agri-food manufacturing cluster, with IFG's own COO signaling a phased build-out that could feed more tenants into those parcels. But the Taylorsville parcels are owned by two separate private entities, Force Holdings LLC and Palladin LLC, with no municipal annexation backstop, a coordination risk that has stalled prior Duke program sites, while Duke's program now competes directly with Indiana Michigan Power's new 'Future Ready Sites Accelerator,' launched in February 2026 covering Auburn, Muncie, and South Bend.
Watch: Whether Force Holdings and Palladin LLC can move quickly on a build-to-suit deal, and whether the Dearborn County I-74 corridor (which has seen prior site listings stall at this same interchange) finally converts to a signed tenant.
For the huddle: Could our supply chain plug into the agri-food manufacturing cluster forming around Grillo's Pickles and King's Hawaiian in Taylorsville, or into the light-manufacturing/distribution demand building at the St. Leon I-74 site?

SourcesDuke Energy selects Taylorsville properties as high-potential industrial site (wbiw.com)

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03Johnson

Amazon's $100 Million Greenwood Robotics Plant Pays Near $100,000 Average Salary

Amazon announced a $100 million, 585,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing plant at 1175 Collins Road in Greenwood on September 24, creating 300 jobs in CNC operation, welding, powder coating, and controls engineering at an average salary near $100,000. The move puts Amazon directly into manufacturing the robots it already buys from outside vendors. Boston Dynamics has committed all 2026 Atlas production to Hyundai and Google DeepMind, and Figure AI is running 10-hour shifts dedicated to BMW, leaving Amazon unable to source externally at the pace its robotic arm fleet is expanding.

Impact: This is Amazon formally moving from robotics end-user to at-scale manufacturer, competing with the same third-party vendors it also buys from: Boston Dynamics has committed all 2026 Atlas production to Hyundai and Google DeepMind, and Figure AI is running 10-hour shifts dedicated to BMW, leaving Amazon unable to source externally at the pace its doubling robotic-arm fleet demands. The Greenwood site sits directly across the street from an existing Amazon fulfillment center, making this a closed-loop build-test-deploy operation rather than a standalone cost play, and its near-$100,000 average salary is roughly 40-80% above the $55,000-$70,000 regional pay for CNC operators and welders, a gap that could pull skilled trades away from other I-65 corridor manufacturers.
Watch: Equipment-installation milestones ahead of the 2028 launch target, and any IEDC disclosure quantifying the EDGE/HBI incentive package Amazon is drawing on, including the inherited tax abatement from the site's previous developer.
For the huddle: If Amazon's wage floor at Greenwood pulls CNC operators and welders away from our shop floor, what's our retention and pay-scale response before 2028 hiring ramps up?

SourcesAmazon plans $100M Indiana manufacturing hub, 300 jobs (therobotreport.com)

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