HEA 1002 Multi-Year Rate Framework: Duke Files by December, and Tracker Consolidation Is the Entire Ballgame

House Enrolled Act 1002 (signed by Governor Braun in March) replaces Indiana's old rate case system with a three-year rate cycle, plus performance penalties tied to affordability and outage restoration. Duke Energy Indiana files first, by mid-December 2026. The other four Indiana utilities follow on a statutory schedule.

The worst case, and it deserves direct attention: Sarah Freeman, who spent nine years as a regulator at the IURC before moving to the Regulatory Assistance Project, named it plainly. Her words: "That, on a bill, would very likely look the same as what bills look like now." She was describing a utility that complies with the multi-year structure on paper but does not roll its trackers into base rates. Tracker consolidation is what determines whether HEA 1002 actually bends the cost curve for your facility or simply reorganizes the paperwork around the same charges.

Duke's December petition is the first real indicator. Watch for how much tracker cost it proposes to fold into base rates, and how much it leaves outside the cap.

There is also a competitive asymmetry worth tracking. NIPSCO has stood up a new affiliate: NIPSCO Generation LLC, or GenCo, to serve hyperscale data center customers including Amazon and Alphabet with a dedicated roughly 340-megawatt generation pool. None of Indiana's other four utilities have a comparable structure. If you are a large industrial customer, the question is whether your load qualifies for anything like that arrangement, or whether you are the residual customer base subsidizing it.

For more on how tracker charges have moved Indiana bills before HEA 1002, see IURC Opens Investigation Into Indiana Utility Tracker Charges, What It Means for Your Power Bill.