HEA 1002 Adds Utility Accountability, and Likely Shifts Costs to Commercial Customers

Governor Mike Braun signed House Enrolled Act 1002 on April 7th, 2026. The law allows residential customers to move to budget billing starting July 1st, bans disconnections for low-income households during extreme heat warnings, ties utility profits to performance metrics including affordability and service restoration, and requires utilities to file three-year rate plans. NIPSCO has already extended a disconnection pause through mid-May. The pattern here is familiar: when the regulatory process is redesigned to protect residential customers, commercial customers typically absorb the cost difference. The wrinkle worth watching is the performance metric component, if utility profits are now tied to outage response, commercial operators with documented outage and power quality data have real leverage at the IURC. That makes monitoring and analytics far more strategic than bill-checking.