AES Indiana's Phase 2 Rate Increase Continues While the SPARK Grant Covers the Seam Upgrade

Indiana secured the SPARK grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to cover roughly half the cost of upgrading transmission lines at the PJM-MISO seam, using reconductoring technology on existing corridors instead of building new lines. Five investor-owned utilities, AES Indiana, CenterPoint, Duke Energy Indiana, NIPSCO, and I&M, carry the other half of that cost, and each will likely seek to recover its share through future rate cases. NIPSCO is already running a $1.64 billion infrastructure plan of its own.

None of that changes what happens in January. AES Indiana's Phase 2 rate increase is already in rehearing at the IURC, that case runs into early 2027, and it takes effect on its own schedule. The grant also does not resolve who pays for the transmission capacity data centers like Meta and Amazon are drawing on. Indiana's own 2026 Strategic Energy Growth Plan is written to avoid a contested rate case over that exact question, and industrial ratepayers are not named in that framing. The cost allocation study mandated under Senate Enrolled Act 422 is where that fight will actually surface, and it is worth having a seat at that table before the allocation gets decided without you.