Duke's 128-Week Transformer Delay Lands Inside Your Project Timeline

Duke Energy Indiana president Stan Pinegar told a Greater Lafayette Commerce panel the company is in "supply chain hell" sourcing equipment, citing a 128-week lead time on large power transformers, a two-and-a-half-year wait on a single piece of infrastructure. CenterPoint and Tipmont raised the same concern. The cost question underneath it: TDSIC lets utilities recover infrastructure spend between rate cases across the whole customer base, and whether data center-driven upgrades get allocated that way rather than to the load that required them is active in current IURC filings. If your expansion depends on a utility-side substation upgrade, that lead time now sits in your critical path, ask your Duke or AES account rep for your interconnection queue position in writing before you commit capex.

Duke's $350,000 Summer Assistance and the Regulatory Subtext

Duke Energy Indiana announced a $350,000 shareholder-funded, not ratepayer-funded, summer bill assistance program for residential customers. The timing matters: Congress is debating the future of LIHEAP, the primary federal affordability mechanism Indiana utilities lean on, and a shareholder-funded gesture builds a visible goodwill record at the IURC while Duke has active proceedings and the commission is being reconstituted. Watch whether other Indiana utilities follow before the next rate case cycle opens.