AES Indiana Phase 2 Takes Effect in January. No Stay Is in Place.

Briefing note

Phase one of AES Indiana's IURC-approved $71 million base-rate increase took effect July 27, 2026, per IURC spokesman Ben Gavelek, while Phase 2 (pegged by AES Indiana at approximately $8.50 per month for an average residential account) remains on track for January 2027, with the rehearing's one-day evidentiary hearing not scheduled until early March 2027. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved the increase June 17 on a 3-1 vote over Governor Mike Braun's objection; the commission subsequently voted 3-1 to reconsider, but the rehearing does not freeze the rate increase, and the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor Abby Gray did not request a stay, meaning any refund would come after the bill. The Citizens Action Coalition, led by Program Director Ben Inskeep, won rehearing on two post-record developments: Google's planned Monrovia data center (Cause No. 46394, filed after AES allegedly denied knowledge of an imminent large load customer) and a GIP/BlackRock-led consortium's announced $10.7 billion acquisition of AES Corporation.

Impact

The structural mechanism buried in this story is the 'collect first, litigate later' dynamic that the IURC itself is now investigating through its concurrent review of utility return-on-equity levels and tracker mechanisms, a review that threatens all five Indiana investor-owned utilities, not just AES Indiana. The Google Monrovia data center disclosure issue is not merely a procedural CAC win: MISO and AES filings show the Monrovia substation is built for 1,200 MW of ultimate load, but Cause No. 46394 covers only the first 390 MW phase, meaning at least two more multi-hundred-megawatt approval rounds are coming, each with their own rate-case adjacency that could further move the cost baseline. For Indianapolis-area manufacturers, the January Phase 2 increase on residential accounts translates into meaningfully higher industrial rate structures, compounding the approximately 6% additional bill increase AES Indiana already signaled customers would see in 2026 from previously approved tracker projects, at the precise moment the GIP/BlackRock acquisition (expected to close late 2026/early 2027) transfers refund liability to new private owners rather than AES Corp's current public shareholders.

Watch

Watch the early March 2027 IURC evidentiary rehearing date on the AES Indiana Cause No. 46394 proceeding: specifically whether the commission's concurrent ROE and tracker investigation produces any interim guidance before that hearing that could affect whether Phase 2 rates are modified, frozen, or subject to expanded refund exposure.