Indiana Electric Rate Increases Are a Three-Utility Problem, Not a Gary Story

A July 15 public forum in Gary put a number on what NIPSCO customers have already absorbed: the monthly bill for a residential benchmark of 1,000 kilowatt-hours rose by $83 between 2023 and 2025, with monthly natural gas bills up roughly $36. Citizens Action Coalition Executive Director Kerwin Olson pointed to NIPSCO's arrangement tied to Amazon's New Carlisle data center campus, which NIPSCO says will return $1 billion in credits to ratepayers; the Coalition argues the figure would be closer to $3.5 billion if Amazon paid transmission rates comparable to other large industrial customers.

That transmission cost allocation question is the live fight, and it is statewide. AES Indiana is pursuing roughly $21 more per month per 1,000 kilowatt-hours by 2027 in its pending case. CenterPoint customers in Evansville have already taken a 25% increase. The IURC has opened a formal investigation into tracker charges, the cost-recovery mechanisms utilities use outside standard rate cases, and that outcome will govern cost-recovery authority on every pending data center power contract in the state. If you have not modeled combined exposure across all three cases, that is this week's work.