Gary and NIPSCO: Data Center Load Sitting Outside Legacy Cost Recovery

The Gary Common Council and the Citizens Action Coalition are running a parallel fight in northwest Indiana. NIPSCO residential bills at 1,000 kWh rose roughly $83 per month between 2023 and 2025, the steepest jump among Indiana's five investor-owned utilities. CAC Executive Director Kerwin Olson argues NIPSCO's Amazon New Carlisle agreement commits $1 billion in ratepayer credits when equivalent industrial transmission rates would put the figure closer to $3.5 billion. NIPSCO disputes that framing.

What is not disputed: the GenCo structure separates data center load from legacy cost recovery, so that load does not help shoulder costs like coal ash cleanup. Meanwhile, DOE emergency orders keeping NIPSCO coal units running past retirement are generating uplift costs NIPSCO is seeking to recover through MISO, with allocation still being litigated. Pressure is arriving from two directions at once.