Merom Generating Station Gets $27M Federal Subsidy and a 12-Year NIPSCO Data Center Deal

On June 4th, the Trump administration announced $700 million in coal subsidies under the Defense Production Act. Hallador Power's Merom Generating Station in Sullivan County, a 1,080-megawatt plant south of Terre Haute, received more than $27 million of that allocation. Separately, Hallador signed a 12-year agreement to sell Merom's electricity to NIPSCO Generation, a subsidiary created specifically to serve data centers in northern Indiana, running from September 2028 through May 2040. Analysts pegged the contract at approximately $450 per megawatt-day, well above recent MISO Zone 6 capacity auction clearing prices.

The operational risk for northern Indiana manufacturers: the Citizens Action Coalition and the OUCC have already filed to appeal the IURC's approval of the NIPSCO GenCo structure. If that appeal succeeds, the contractual chain from Merom to NIPSCO to the data centers faces disruption with 2028 as the earliest stress-test date. If you operate in NIPSCO territory, the question is how that appeal outcome reshapes available capacity and rate trajectory between now and 2028.

Indiana's New Summer Shutoff Law Leaves Most Qualifying Customers Unprotected in 2026

HEA 1002 prohibits utility disconnections within 48 hours of a 95-degree heat index forecast, but only for customers already enrolled in LIHEAP. The IHCDA enrollment window closed April 20th and won't reopen until fall. Anyone not already enrolled has no protection this summer. Municipal utilities are excluded entirely, meaning employees in city-utility service territories have zero coverage regardless of income. A heat-related disconnection can become an attendance or safety incident on your floor.

Ivy Tech Muncie's 94% Surge, And the Governance Seat Manufacturers Are Missing

Advanced manufacturing completions at Ivy Tech Muncie grew 94%, a real number. But the mechanism most operators have missed is SEA 254, which gives Muncie-area manufacturers a formal seat on the campus advisory board starting July 1st. That governance window opens once. If your team isn't at the table recommending curriculum toward automation programming and high-voltage certification, someone else fills that seat.