IURC/OUCC Cases Before The IURC In Which CAC Has Intervened

Last update: May 2024 

IURC Open Cases

Lone Oak Solar Energy LLC v. Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, et al.

Indiana Court of Appeals Case Number 24A-EX-00033

Appeal from Cause Number 45883

Lone Oak has been trying, for the last five years, to build a 120-megawatt electricity generating solar project in Madison County, Indiana. At the outset, Madison County supported the Project. Since then, Lone Oak has been yanked around in many legal proceedings.

Lone Oak argues that it is not in the public interest for a single county to block a public utility’s electric generation project that has been approved by state and federal regulators and serves customer interests far beyond that county’s borders. For nearly 20 years, the IURC has consistently held that it has jurisdiction over independent power producers (“IPPs”) like Lone Oak, and that those facilities are public utilities under Indiana law. Indiana courts long ago found that local regulation of public utilities is not in the public interest, and specifically that public utilities are not subject to local zoning requirements. Yet, the IURC unfairly requires IPPs to secure local zoning approvals as a condition of obtaining IURC approval to build new projects, even when those projects have received full state and federal regulatory approvals and will provide much needed capacity to load serving retail electric utilities. CAC joined an amicus brief with Indiana Conservative Alliance for Energy and Clean Grid Alliance in support of Lone Oak.

IURC Closed Cases

45816 - IURC Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act Electric Vehicle Investigation

File date: 11/3/2022

Order date: 12/7/2023

Status: decided

The purpose of this proceeding is for the Commission to consider measures to promote greater electrification of the transportation sector as referenced in Section 111(d)(21) of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (“PURPA”), as amended by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

In June 2023, CAC filed testimony (PDF download) recommending that the IURC:

• Direct each investor-owned electric utility engage in a public stakeholder collaborative on designing transportation electrification rates and programs; 
• Direct each investor-owned utility to file a comprehensive transportation electrification plan with the Commission that takes into consideration stakeholder feedback provided in the collaborative no later than December 31, 2024, with updates every two years thereafter; 
• Place a strong emphasis on residential customer bill affordability, meaningfully addressing inequities in access to EV charging in low-income communities and communities of color, and removing barriers to EV supply equipment (EVSE) deployment. 

In the final order, the IURC said that they have sufficient Indiana-specific authority to reasonably pursue the spirit of the standard without risking the creation of regulatory inefficiencies that could arise from potential federal and state regulatory interpretations.

45744 - Reliability Confidentiality Docket

File date: 7/6/2022

Order date: 9/28/2022

Status: approved

The five electric investor-owned utilities requested the Commission to find, on an emergency and expedited basis, that certain information they submitted to the Commission in compliance with House Enrolled Act 1520 is confidential, proprietary, competitively sensitive, and/or trade secret exempt from public disclosure. This information consists of forecasts of each utility’s aggregate demand, aggregate and individual resources and contracts, and capacity positions. Notably, these utilities waited for almost three months to seek confidential treatment for this information submitted to the Commission on April 15, 2022, with the Commission, as a result, inadvertently disclosing said information with others, such as the other utilities, MISO, and PJM. CAC attended the evidentiary hearing held on August 3, 2022, and was able to negotiate with some utilities to have fewer redactions to said material before the hearing began.

OUCC Closed Cases

45736 - Affordability Data Investigation

File date: 6/23/2022

Order date: 10/26/2022

Status: dismissed

The OUCC requested an IURC investigation to evaluate the need for monthly utility reporting of disconnection and customer arrearage data. While Indiana law generally does not require utilities to report such data to the Commission, the Commission has broad authority to require such reporting. However, in its filed petition, the OUCC cited ongoing economic conditions including inflation and significant increases in wholesale natural gas costs, which are driving higher rates for electric and natural gas consumers. The OUCC noted that the IURC required most of the large investor-owned utilities to report similar data throughout most of 2020 and all of 2021 in its investigation of rate impacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The petition asks the IURC to require all IURC-jurisdictional Indiana utilities with at least 8,000 customer accounts to report certain data on a monthly basis through the end of 2024, including but not limited to the number and balance of accounts in arrears, in active payment arrangements, and facing disconnection. CAC is in support of this request, although we would like (1) expanded reporting metrics, particularly to collect and disaggregate LIHEAP customer data, and (2) this reporting to continue indefinitely and not cease at the end of 2024.