aes indiana

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun asked the state’s powerful utility regulator to reject a coal plant’s proposed conversion to natural gas.

The utility originally requested an increase that would raise customers' bills by more than $17 per month. The approved settlement agreement will increase customers' utility bills by just over $9 per month.

The Hoosier utility company this week filed a request with the IURC to transition its two remaining coal-burning units.

Electric bills for Indianapolis area residents were expected to go up by more than $17 a month. Now, that increase could be less than $10 a month.

Thousands of Hoosier customers lost power during the week of heavy storms, prompting frustration.

And it called the joint petition an “attack on the Company.”

Significant proportions of customers are in debt, with some facing service shut-offs.

AES Indiana converted its Eagle Valley plant from coal to natural gas seven years ago. But there is still coal ash at the site and monitoring data shows it’s leaching toxic heavy metals into the groundwater — like arsenic, boron, lithium, mercury and molybdenum.

The program allows utility customers that use a lot of energy to have part of their bill go towards setting up a local solar or wind farm.

Since the Sierra Club released its first utility scorecard last year, more than half of electric utilities in the U.S. made improvements — but 35 percent of them got even lower scores than the previous report.