AES Indiana BlackRock Buyout Faces Bipartisan FERC Challenge

The letter to FERC Chair Laura Swett came from Warren, Democrat André Carson, and Republican Victoria Spartz. The buyers are Global Infrastructure Partners, a BlackRock subsidiary, and EQT. GIP also closed a $40 billion purchase of Aligned Data Centers, and the lawmakers argue an owner on both sides could favor grid upgrades that serve its own affiliated data centers while every other customer, including your plant, shares the bill. Two more groups have joined a formal protest at FERC: the Independent Market Monitor for PJM and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Both are questioning whether BlackRock's existing blanket approval covers this kind of active utility ownership. AES says no deal costs will land on Indiana ratepayers, and AES Indiana stays state-regulated no matter how the ownership question resolves.

Two Regulators, Two Clocks, No Coordination

AES Indiana's $71 million rate increase doesn't get reconsidered by the IURC until March 2027. FERC review, CFIUS review, antitrust review and New York regulators are still working through the ownership deal on a separate timeline. Ohio regulators and AES shareholders have already signed off. Pull your AES Indiana load forecast and tariff class now, and if FERC attaches conditions to the deal before March, ask your industrial-customer group or counsel whether those conditions belong in the IURC rehearing.