September 24, 2026 · Lake · Boone · NIPSCO

NIPSCO IURC Investigation Goes Official, Indiana Industrial Property Assessments Jump 25.8%, and Honda's Ohio Plant Opens a Supplier Window

NIPSCO's IURC investigation is now formal, Indiana industrial property assessments surged 25.8%, and Honda's Ohio plant opens a supplier window. What Indiana manufacturers need to do now.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Indiana manufacturers are absorbing three new developments this week, and they do not all point the same direction. The IURC has opened a formal investigation into NIPSCO's August 11 derecho response. Indiana's statewide industrial property assessed value recorded a 25.8% single-year surge driven largely by a state accounting methodology change. And Honda is reportedly in final discussions on a new Ohio hybrid assembly plant that creates a concrete sourcing window for Indiana Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers by 2030. Two of these are cost pressures operators did not cause. One is an opportunity with a narrow qualification window.

01Statewide

NIPSCO Derecho Response Under Formal IURC Review

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission confirmed Tuesday it is opening a formal investigation into NIPSCO's preparation and response to the August 11 derecho, which knocked out power to more than 300,000 customers across Northwest Indiana, some for up to two weeks. A procedural schedule will be set at a September 28 virtual attorney's conference.

For the huddle: Given that the IURC's investigation may expose a systemic gap in how tracker-funded vegetation management is enforced (and that the Commission lacks authority to levy fines) what is our contingency plan for extended grid outages at this facility, and have we quantified the cost of that two-week worst-case scenario against the cost of on-site backup generation?

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02Statewide

Indiana Industrial Property Assessments Surged 25.8%: The Methodology Change Most Coverage Missed

This story is statewide and hits every Indiana manufacturer regardless of utility provider. Indiana's statewide assessed value of industrial property surged 25.8% in 2026 compared to 2025, per DLGF assessment data.

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03Statewide

Honda's Reported Ohio Hybrid Plant Creates a Supplier Qualification Window for Indiana

Per reporting from Nikkei and Automotive News, Honda is reportedly in the final stage of discussions to build a new hybrid vehicle assembly plant in Ohio, its first U.S. assembly plant in roughly two decades, at a reported cost of between approximately $1.9 billion and $2.53 billion, with production targeted to start in 2030. Reported annual capacity is approximately 250,000 vehicles, building two large crossovers for the Honda and Acura brands.

For the huddle: If Honda is committing to raise local content on hybrid motors and inverters by more than four times current levels across a 15-model portfolio by March 2030, which specific components in that system can our facility realistically bid on, and have we engaged Honda's North American procurement team about the Ohio plant's bill of materials before supplier qualification windows open?

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04Statewide

Indiana Industrial Property Assessments Jump 25.8%, IMA Warns of Larger Burden Shift Ahead

Indiana's statewide assessed value of industrial property surged 25.8% in 2026 compared to 2025 (the biggest one-year jump in years) driven by two factors: genuine manufacturing expansion and data center land conversions, and a state Department of Local Government Finance administrative decision to update cost-of-construction data for the first time in four years and eliminate a long-standing downward cost-localization adjustment. Indiana Manufacturers Association President and CEO Andrew Berger warns that of the more than $1.5 billion in property tax cuts from 2025 legislation covering 2026 to 2028, more than 80% flows to homeowners, meaning the commercial and industrial base must absorb the offset as local governments hold spending steady.

For the huddle: Have we pulled our 2026 Notice of Assessment to confirm our specific assessed value increase, and do we know whether our county's industrial AV spike is being driven by data center conversions near us, because if so, we may have grounds for a formal appeal before the county tax appeal deadline?

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05Boone

Eli Lilly Advances Lebanon, Indiana API Plant as Part of $50B U.S. Reshoring Push

Eli Lilly and Company, headquartered in Indianapolis, is advancing its Lilly Lebanon API manufacturing plant in Lebanon, Indiana (designed for mass production of Zepbound, Mounjaro, and Foundayo) as part of a $50 billion plan to reshore medicine production to the U.S. When fully operational, Lilly Lebanon API is slated to be the largest active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing site in U.S. history. The Lebanon complex also includes the $4.5 billion Lilly Medicine Foundry, designed for research, trial-supply production, and manufacturing process development for Zepbound and Mounjaro, as well as an advanced therapies campus currently under construction.

For the huddle: Is our company positioned to qualify as a supplier, contractor, or logistics provider to the Lilly Lebanon API campus or the $4.5 billion Medicine Foundry in Boone County, and if not, what certifications, capacity, or quality-system investments would we need to get on their approved vendor list before construction phases ramp further?

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06Statewide

Lilly Breaks Ground on $6.5B Houston API Plant, Indiana HQ Watches Where Net-New Capacity Is Landing

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) formally broke ground on September 21, 2026, on a $6.5 billion active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing site at Generation Park in northeast Houston, Texas (chosen over more than 300 competing U.S. locations) as part of Lilly's $50 billion domestic reshoring commitment. The roughly 236-240-acre campus will produce APIs for Foundayo (orforglipron), Lilly's first synthetic oral GLP-1 medicine, along with other small-molecule medicines and oligonucleotides; it is expected to be operational by 2030 and will employ more than 615 permanent high-wage positions plus approximately 4,000 construction jobs.

For the huddle: Given that Lilly is deploying AI, machine learning, and advanced digital analytics as core infrastructure in the Houston plant from day one, what is our facility's digital automation readiness if Lilly or another large pharma anchor were to evaluate us as a contract services or logistics partner, and are we benchmarking our automation stack against what the next generation of Lilly-scale facilities is treating as baseline?

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Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: NIPSCO completed only 954 of the 1,263 miles of vegetation trimming it committed to before the August 11 storm. What does that mean for my reliability exposure going forward? A: It means the infrastructure gap that contributed to the two-week outage has not been fully closed, and the IURC investigation cannot issue mandatory fines even if it finds negligence. Your backup generation calculus needs to be based on the grid as it actually is, not on the rate increase NIPSCO collected.

Q: My Indiana facility's assessed value jumped significantly in 2026. Is that because my plant is actually worth more? A: Probably not entirely. A major driver of the 25.8% statewide industrial assessment surge is a DLGF methodology change, specifically the elimination of a cost-localization adjustment and an update to construction cost tables that had not been revised in four years. Pull your 2026 Notice of Assessment and verify the specific basis for your increase before any appeal window closes.

Q: Honda has not confirmed the Ohio plant. Should I be doing anything now? A: Yes. Supplier qualification timelines run ahead of groundbreaking announcements, sometimes by two or more years. If your facility produces stamped components or powertrain parts already used in Honda's Ohio supply chain, the right time to engage Honda's North American procurement team is before the project is officially announced, not after.

Q: Indiana manufacturers are absorbing higher NIPSCO rates and a higher property tax assessment at the same time. What is the right sequence of action? A: Run the outage cost calculation first, because the next storm does not wait for the legislative calendar. Then pull your 2026 Notice of Assessment and verify the methodology behind your specific increase. Engage the IMA on the Fiscal Policy Committee study while that window is open. These are parallel actions, not a sequence you can defer one item to complete the other.

Related reading: If you are tracking how utility rate cases and tracker filings translate into your facility's all-in power costs, see the earlier TEG Daily on NIPSCO TDSIC Cost Recovery Lands at the Indiana Supreme Court and IURC NIPSCO Affordability Investigation Goes Formal.

Watch this TEG Daily on YouTube: TEG-PENDING-YOUTUBE-URL

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