AES Indiana Rate Increase Rehearing Set for March Amid Zay Settlement Fallout

Daniel BurkePublished every day

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has locked in a one-day evidentiary hearing for March 11 on AES Indiana's $71 million rate increase, approved 3-1 back in June. Citizens Action Coalition is now arguing that a Google data center project in Monrovia, revealed only after the case record closed, undercuts the load growth that justified the increase in the first place, and that the approved settlement put the largest rate increase on households while industrial customers got a smaller share. Former IURC commissioner Andy Zay settled his wrongful termination lawsuit against Gov. Mike Braun's administration for $625,000 in August without any ruling on whether the firing was lawful, so the reconstituted commission's authority to even rehear the case remains unresolved. AES Indiana's 12% increase is actually the smallest of five Indiana utility rate hikes moving through the IURC right now, behind NIPSCO at 26.7%, CenterPoint at 25%, and Duke Energy Indiana at 20%.

Impact

AES Indiana's 12% rate hike ($17/month) is actually the smallest of the five major Indiana utilities currently raising rates under Braun's restructured IURC: NIPSCO hit customers with a 26.7% ($50/month) increase, CenterPoint 25% ($44/month), and Duke Energy Indiana 20% ($26/month), yet AES is the one facing a rehearing, a competitive and regulatory inconsistency worth tracking. Layer on an unresolved question of whether Zay's firing was lawful, and any adverse ruling against AES could be thrown out on procedural grounds before affordability is even litigated, while a second AES rate case (a separate $90.7 million settlement) runs in parallel, pushing a typical bill from $169/month in July 2025 toward $187.57/month by January 2027.

Watch

The one-day evidentiary hearing scheduled for March 11, and any appellate filing tied to the unresolved Zay firing that could challenge the IURC's authority to rule at all.

For the huddle

If the rehearing finds that AES Indiana's settlement shifted cost burden onto households while protecting industrial rates, could our facility's rate class be asked to absorb more of the increase once the record is corrected?

Check which utility territory your facility sits in and review your current rate class. Citizens Action Coalition is arguing the approved settlement protected industrial rates while pushing the largest increase onto households, so if the rehearing reverses that allocation, industrial customers could absorb a larger share of the $71 million increase.

Sources

Indiana challenges AES $71M rate hike as bigger power bills hit before rehearing · thecooldown.com

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