AES Indiana Cases Before the IURC in which CAC has intervened
Last update: May 2024
Active Cases
There are currently no active cases involving AES that CAC has intervened in.
Closed Cases
45917 - AES Storm Outages Investigation
File date: 7/11/2023
Order date: 4/17/2024
Status: dismissed with prejudice
The OUCC and CAC initiated this proceeding by filing a joint petition with the Commission, requesting an investigation into AES Indiana’s practices and procedures regarding storm outage restoration after the June 29, 2023 storm wherein the utility did not report full restoration until the evening of July 4, 2023. The IURC frustratingly used the 45911 settlement as its basis to dismiss this investigation with prejudice
45898 - AES 2024 Demand Side Management 1-Year Plan
File date: 5/26/2023
Order date: 12/27/2023
Status: approved
AES proposed a 1-year extension of its 2021-2023 plan into 2024. CAC was able to resolve its issues with AES prior to AES filing the case and with a stipulation at the evidentiary hearing in September. The IURC approved the proposal incorporating CAC's stipulation.
File date: 6/28/2023
Order date: 4/17/2024
Status: settlement approved
You can get the full details of this rate case on our AES Indiana Rate Hike (2023) webpage.
AES is asking the IURC for permission to hike bills by over $23 per month so they can raise their annual operating revenues by $134.2 million, and significantly increase their profit margin.
In this case, AES wants to:
- Increase their authorized return on equity (profit) from 9.99% to 10.6%.
- Increase the monthly fixed charge for most customers to $25 per month, a 49% increase. This would give AES the highest monthly fixed charge of any investor-owned monopoly utility in Indiana, by far.
- Increase the fixed charge for low usage customers (those using 325 kilowatt hours or less per month) by 34% to $16.50.
- Use their newly installed smart meters to remotely disconnect residential customers.
- Increase household reconnection fees from $44 to $51 ($64 to $80 for Sunday reconnections).
- Force Hoosier households to pay higher rates to subsidize lower rates for large commercial and industrial customers; and 7) Force customers to pay for the $5 million they're planning to spend on consultants and lawyers to help them argue for this rate increase.
2023 Cases
45843 - AES Electric Vehicle Portfolio
File date: 1/27/2023
Order date: 11/22/2023
Status: approved
AES proposes to offer a three-year portfolio of EV programs. The proposed Public Use EV Pilot Program includes:
- Bi-directional Charging Pilot to test test vehicle-to-grid integration and bi-directional power flow with select customers in AES Indiana’s service territory.
- Fleet Solutions to provide planning and advisory services to customers who are transitioning their fleets from traditional fuels to Public Use EVs.
- EVSE Rebates to encourage customer investment in Level 2 and direct current fast charging (“DCFC”) equipment to serve Public Use EVs.
- EVSE Rebates for Disadvantaged Communities.
AES also proposes certain time of use rates for Residential customers, including:
- Residential Managed Charging
- Off-Peak Incentive
- Cessation of Rate EVX to drive participants to the other two offerings.
For C&I and Public customers, AES proposes:
- C&I Managed Charging
- Rate EVP which updates AES Indiana’s existing Level 2 public charging rate to match current market conditions.
- Rate DCFC to provide a new, market-based rate that would be charged to drivers using AES Indiana-owned DCFC charging infrastructure.
- Tariff EVSE, a voluntary, participant-funded alternative tariff to provide charging infrastructure to participating customers for a fixed, monthly fee.
On 4/27/23, CAC filed testimony noting that AES Indiana has not provided sufficient information to assess the merits of most components of the EV Portfolio (including not providing draft tariffs or other critical details), and therefore CAC recommends that most components be denied at this time. We also recommend that the Commission direct AES Indiana to establish a EV charging collaborative, open to all interested stakeholders, to further develop and improve upon the EV Portfolio concepts, after which time AES Indiana can refile a more robustly supported and transparent proposal at the Commission. We also noted that Commission guidance on EV projects was likely forthcoming from pending Cause No. 45816 and/or a rulemaking to implement House Enrolled Act 1221 (2022), and thus AES should incorporate that before refiling.
On 11/22/2023, the IURC approved AES's proposal without modification.
38703 FAC 133 S1 - Eagle Valley FAC Subdocket Investigation
File date: 11/24/2021
Order date: 1/8/2023
Status: settlement approved
In AES-Indiana’s FAC proceeding, the Company reported on the extended forced outage at the 671 megawatt Eagle Valley CCGT plant, the result of human and technical error. For nearly one year, AES's Eagle Valley fossil gas-fired power plant sat idle, failing to provide electricity to customers, yet customers continued to pay for the power plant in their monthly bills. Because Eagle Valley was not producing electricity for almost a full year, AES had to buy power in the marketplace to replace the power Eagle Valley failed to generate. AES then came before the IURC to ask to charge customers almost $71 million for that replacement power. CAC helped to cut the rate increase that AES Indiana wanted down from $71 million to $13.7 million.
2022 Cases
45584 - Clean energy subscription billing
File date: 7/27/2021
Order date: 4/6/2022
Status: settlement approved
AES Indiana proposes the AES Indiana Plus Subscription, a “clean energy subscription option with flat-billing, accessible via a mobile customer engagement application which is designed to improve the residential customer experience around energy usage. The clean energy will be provided by renewable energy credits (“RECs”), which may be furnished under AES Indiana Standard Contract Rider No. 21: Green Power Initiative.” The IURC approved the settlement we reached with AES Indiana and the OUCC, addressing many of our collective concerns such as disclosing hidden fees, ensuring transparent customer communications and notices, increasing consumer protections, and providing several off ramps to exit the program without a termination fee.
45504 - Excess Distributed Generation
File date: 3/1/2021
Order date: 1/26/2022
Status: approved
SEA309 (2017) ended net metering in Indiana. Net metering is a fair and simple way to credit solar owners for the electricity they generate but don’t use themselves. Instead, the solar owner earns a bill credit for energy shared with their neighbors on the electric grid valued at the same rate as electricity purchased from the utility - an even 1:1 swap. As a result of SEA309, Indiana’s investor-owned utilities replaced net metering with an arbitrarily designed Excess Distributed Generation (EDG) tariff that credits new solar customers far less on their monthly bills for the extra electricity they generate.
- The outcome of this case was affected by the outcome of the CenterPoint 45378 case.
- Sarah Bowman at the IndyStar wrote a comprehensive piece about this in November 2022: Advocates, utilities ask Indiana Supreme Court to decide how solar customers are charged.
- In response to the January 2023 Supreme Court Opinion regarding net metering, CAC and our partners at Solar United Neighbors wrote an op-ed (Solar opinion undermines growing industry), which was published by the Indiana Capital Chronicle on January 9th.
45509 - Electric vehicle charging accounting
File date: 3/2/2021
Status: withdrawn
AES Indiana was proposing to offer a portfolio of electric vehicle programs and initiatives, including managed charging (active curtailment of EV charging during peak hours), AES Indiana Motor (digitally-enabled EV marketplace), and an off-peak incentive (off-bill, seasonal incentive structure designed to encourage off-peak EV charging). AES withdrew the case, but can refile the same or similar case in the future.
