NIPSCO Cases Before The IURC In Which CAC Has Intervened

Last update: May 2024

Previous years: 2023, 2022

 

Active Cases

 

45967 - NIPSCO Gas Rate Case

File date: 10/25/2023

Status: pending

You can get more detail about this case on our NIPSCO Gas Rate Hike (2024) webpage.

NIPSCO just got a gas rate hike in 2022, and they're back again asking for more. NIPSCO Gas’s requested rate hike would raise the average customer’s natural gas bill by 10.63% ($8.09/month). NIPSCO also wants to increase the monthly fixed charge to $25.50, up from its current level at $16.50.

 

 

45947 - NIPSCO Electric Gas Peaker Plant Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN)

File date: 9/12/2023

Status: pending

You can get more detail about this case on our NIPSCO Electric Gas Plant webpage.

NIPSCO wants to charge customers at least $641.2 MILLION to build a new dirty fossil gas plant that will operate less than 20% of the year. The projected $641.2 million price tag is an estimate; NIPSCO indicates the cost of the plant could increase by as much as 30%. 

 

 

NIPSCO Electric - 45557 - TDSIC

File date: 6/1/2021

Order date: 12/28/2021

Status: pending, on appeal

Following the substantial completion of NIPSCO’s current electric TDSIC 2016-2022, NIPSCO filed for a shocking request for approval of a $1.4 billion electric TDSIC plan, consisting of approximately 20% for distribution substations, 18% for distribution lines, 17% for transmission substations, 12% for transmission lines, 10% for new AMI, and more. The IURC approved the request, and the NIPSCO Industrial Group appealed. The Industrial Group lost at the Court of Appeals and appealed again. The case is now pending before the Indiana Supreme Court.

 

 

 

 

2023 Cases

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45797 - NIPSCO Schahfer Coal Ash

File date: 11/2/2022

Order date: 11/28/2023

Status: dismissed

You can read more about this case on our NIPSCO Coal Ash Case webpage for Cause Number 45797.

NIPSCO is requesting to raise rates by more than $53 million to pay for its Schahfer cleanup. NIPSCO wants Hoosier families to subsidize its coal ash clean-up costs so it can give a large discount to its large industrial customers – and so its Wall Street shareholders don’t have to pay a dime. If approved by the IURC, its plan would raise a typical residential customer bill by approximately $0.40 per month. Its proposal would also allow NIPSCO shareholders to earns millions of dollars in profits.

CAC is demanding a complete cleanup of all coal ash that has been unsafely disposed of at NIPSCO’s coal-fired power plants in Indiana. It is also fighting back on NIPSCO’s unfair proposal to make its customers instead of its shareholders pay for the cleanup. NIPSCO should not be allowed to profit on its failure to properly dispose toxic coal ash for many decades!  The settlement in NIPSCO's 2023 base rate case - Cause Number 45772 - resolves this case.

 

 

NIPSCO Electric - 45700 - Coal ash Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity

File date: 3/30/2022

Order date: 11/28/2023

Status: dismissed

You can read more about this case on our NIPSCO Coal Ash Case webpage for Cause Number 45700.

NIPSCO requests approval to close five ash ponds at its Michigan City generating station and recover the closure and remediation costs through rates with a total project cost of approximately $40 million. The closures are necessary to comply with federal regulations (the EPA’s Coal Combustion Residuals Rule and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) and an agreed order between NIPSCO and IDEM. The first tracker filing would raise rates for a residential customer using 700 kWh per month by 30 cents. UPDATE: We attended a well-attended field hearing on August 1st in Michigan City where passionate testimony was given in opposition to NIPSCO’s handling of the coal ash situation and cost recovery proposal. In short, the community wants NIPSCO to clean up 100%, rather than 10%, of the coal ash contamination and to foot the bill for the issues they caused. The settlement in NIPSCO's 2023 base rate case - Cause Number 45772 - resolves this case.

 

 

45849 - NIPSCO Electric Demand Side Management Plan 2024-2026

File date: 2/15/2023

Order date: 10/18/2023

Status: settlement approved

NIPSCO’s electric gross energy efficiency goal amounts to approximately 375,122 MWh of savings for the three-year plan, amounting to 1.5% of the sales forecasts (with opt out customers removed). NIPSCO proposed to included Emerging Technologies in its plan, which is an issue that has become important to CAC. Opt-out commercial and industrial customers represent over 16% of commercial and 80% of Industrial kWh sales. NIPSCO is requesting to recover lost revenues for the earlier of the life of the measure, four years, or a new base rate order. A settlement with all parties was reached (CAC included), and was approved by the IURC.

 

 

45850 - NIPSCO Gas Demand Side Management Plan 2024-2026

File date: 2/15/2023

Order date: 8/30/2023

Status: settlement approved

NIPSCO’s proposed gas energy efficiency goals for its gas DSM program amounts to approximately 14,381,000 gross therm savings over the 3-year plan. NIPSCO requests continued authority to recover lost revenues as was negotiated in the last gas DSM plan. A settlement with all parties was reached (CAC included), and was approved by the IURC.

 

 

45772 - NIPSCO Electric General Rate Case

File date: 9/19/2022

Order date: 8/2/2023

Status: settlement approved

NIPSCO wants to increase their total rate base (the value of their assets) by $1.8 billion, and their annual revenue requirement (the amount they're authorized to collect from customers each year) by nearly $393.5 million, an increase of almost 26%. In August 2023, the IURC approved the settlement agreement between NIPSCO, NIPSCO Industrial Group, and the OUCC. NIPSCO's requested $20/month bill hike was cut to a bill hike of $12.37/month. NIPSCO's requested $17 monthly residential customer fixed charge will be cut to $14 (it is currently $13.50). CAC did not join the settlement agreement primarily because the low income assistance program proposed by NIPSCO was not included in the final terms of the settlement. More background at https://www.citact.org/nipsco-45772.

 

 

 

 

2022 Cases

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NIPSCO Gas - 45621 - 2022 Gas Rate Case

File date: 9/29/2021

Order date: 7/27/2022

Status: settlement approved

The settlement allows NIPSCO Gas to raise rates by approximately $71.8 million, which is $37.9 million less than NIPSCO requested. It also allows them to increase the residential monthly fixed charge from $14.00 to $16.50, which is $8 less than NIPSCO requested.

 

 

NIPSCO Electric - 38706 FAC 135 - Investigation of Schahfer Plant

File date: 5/19/2022

Order date: 7/27/2022

Status: decided

In FAC 135, issues surrounding the Schahfer outage are still at issue. Given the fact that the Commission was unable to determine whether NIPSCO will earn an excess return and because the Commission opened a subdocket on the issue, the impact on costs subject in this FAC had not yet been adjusted for that impact. Thus, the Commission found on July 27, 2022, that the rates approved in FAC 135 should be interim rates, subject to refund.

 

 

NIPSCO Electric - 38706 FAC 130 S1 - Investigation of Schahfer Plant

File date: 4/28/2021

Order date: 6/15/2022

Status: refund ordered

The IURC found that NIPSCO acted unreasonably and imprudently with respect to the events that gave rise to the fire at Schahfer Units 14 and 15 on July 16, 2020, and as a result of such imprudence, ratepayers have incurred greater fuel costs between the date of the fire and the retirement of Units 14 and 15 on October 1, 2021, in the amount of $7,986,115 that NIPSCO shall refund. It also found that NIPSCO essentially tried to hide the evidence that showed it acted imprudently (e.g., the person in charge was pulling a double shift, working 24 hours straight and failed to address the alarm showing rising temperatures for 5+ hours, but NIPSCO tried to say it was all equipment malfunctions).

 

 

NIPSCO Electric - 45505 - Excess Distributed Generation

File date: 3/1/2021

Order date: 12/15/2021

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.

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