Amazon New Carlisle Data Center: Diesel Generators, Three Pollutants, and No Public Notice

On January 27, the Department of Energy issued a Section 202(c) emergency order directing Amazon Web Services' New Carlisle campus to shed 50 megawatts from the grid. Backup diesel generators came online, but temperatures were low enough that air lines froze in five of them. Pollution controls failed. Three pollutants contributing to smog, acid rain, and respiratory irritation were released into the air for five hours. AWS confirmed total emissions stayed below one percent of annual permitted levels. Bob Humbarger, 85, who has farmed the land just east of the campus for more than fifty years, said he was never notified.

The regulatory exposure this creates for I&M customers goes beyond the pollution event itself. Emergency diesel generators carry a permit limit of roughly 100 hours of runtime annually. A DOE Section 202(c) order creates a runtime category that IDEM has not classified. No guidance has been issued on how 202(c)-ordered runtime counts against that 100-hour cap. Until IDEM acts, the classification is legally ambiguous, there is no regulatory backstop limiting how long those generators can run during a federally ordered grid event. Virginia's DEQ exploited identical ambiguity in 2025 by redefining what qualifies as an emergency. Indiana has issued no equivalent guidance.

Two separate cost pressures compound that exposure if you're on I&M's grid. PJM capacity auction clearing prices surged roughly eleven-fold in the most recent auction, and those costs pass through to customers on a near-term basis. I&M's proposed acquisition of an Ohio natural gas plant would separately enter rate base and be recovered from all customers over a 20-to-30-year depreciation schedule. Two distinct mechanisms. They land on the same line of your bill.

What to do now: If you are on I&M's grid, find out whether your current power contract contains any provisions that insulate you from rate base cost recovery tied to hyperscale load growth. The default answer right now is no.