AEP Creates AEP Infrastructure Unit as Indiana Michigan Power Races to Serve 3.1 GW of Data Center Load

Daniel BurkePublished every day

American Electric Power announced Nov. 3 that it is creating a new business unit, AEP Infrastructure, led by Greg Hall and reporting to CEO Bill Fehrman, to house competitive generation as the company responds to what Fehrman called once-in-a-generation load growth. AEP's Indiana subsidiary, Indiana Michigan Power, carries roughly 3.1 gigawatts of pending PJM data center load, anchored by the $11 billion, 2,250 megawatt Amazon Web Services campus in New Carlisle. To serve it, I&M signed an April 2026 agreement to buy the 918 megawatt Sycamore Riverside Energy Center in Sullivan County from Invenergy, with a final Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission order expected in December. This is Invenergy's third project in Sullivan County, and the December ruling is really a regional reliability decision at a moment when FERC has already rejected AEP's attempt to sell 750 megawatts of merchant capacity into the PJM auction.

Impact

The Sycamore Riverside seller is Invenergy, North America's largest private power producer, and this is its third project in Sullivan County, a pattern of buying up greenfield gas sites next to retiring coal plants specifically to resell to load-stressed utilities like I&M. The IURC's December ruling is really a regional grid-reliability call given PJM's already-flagged capacity shortfalls, and it comes right after FERC rejected AEP's February 2026 attempt to sell 750 MW of 'excess' merchant capacity into the PJM auction, a precedent that puts fresh scrutiny on how AEP Infrastructure's merchant deals interact with regulated Indiana rates.

Watch

The IURC's final order on the Sycamore Riverside acquisition, expected in December 2026, and any FERC scrutiny of affiliate transactions between AEP Infrastructure and Indiana Michigan Power.

For the huddle

If I&M's new generation capacity is timed to match AWS's New Carlisle ramp, what happens to grid reliability for our plants if that campus's actual load ramps faster or slower than AEP's build-out schedule?

AEP's 3.1 gigawatt pending load figure depends on the Sycamore Riverside acquisition clearing the IURC in December, so a faster AWS ramp than that schedule allows is worth raising with your utility account manager now, before the order lands.

Sources

AEP Creates Infrastructure Business Unit to Support Growing Energy Demand · prnewswire.com

Earlier coverage

From the brief, November 4, 2026

Samsung SDI Begins Kokomo LFP Battery Shipments on 60 GWh Order Book
Indiana Office of Energy Development Pitches Nuclear and SMRs Amid Data Center Moratoriums
AEP Creates AEP Infrastructure Unit as Indiana Michigan Power Races to Serve 3.1 GW of Data Center Load
$8.5 Billion Auto Component Wave Includes Stellantis Kokomo Engine Line Expansion
September Factory Orders Beat Expectations as Tariff-Driven Margin Squeeze Builds

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