Top executive at utility AES leaves in corporate reorganization
The parent company of utility AES Indiana has parted ways with its top U.S. utility executive in what the company is calling a mutual separation.
The parent company of utility AES Indiana has parted ways with its top U.S. utility executive in what the company is calling a mutual separation.
As climate change pushes states in the U.S. to dramatically cut their use of fossil fuels, many are coming to the conclusion that solar, wind and other renewable power sources might not be enough to keep the lights on.
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, is the organization responsible for managing the power grid across Indiana, 14 other states and the Canadian province of Manitoba.
Duke Energy Indiana wants to spend about $1.9 billion to upgrade its electric grid, a move it says would result in few and shorter power outages and would harden the grid against severe weather.
Bill Fine, the Indiana Utility Consumer Counselor, wrote in a filing that “after receiving base rate increases in 2018 and 2020, I&M has not made the case for this increase at this time.”
The president wants the nation to produce 100% clean energy by 2035. But that goal faces massive hurdles. Those include an electric grid that needs enormous expansion to carry electricity from renewable energy sources to densely populated regions.
The utility’s R. Gallagher power plant, which boasts twin smokestacks that have long towered over the Ohio River city of New Albany, was scheduled to be retired in 2022, but will now close much earlier.
Authorities ordered 7 million people—a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state—to boil tap water before drinking it, following record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and pipes.
The Indianapolis-based utility said it also will spend $5 million to mitigate what critics say has been harm to the environment caused by the plant’s excess emissions over the years.
IPL said a typical household customer would likely pay an extra $1.50 a month in the first year. That monthly amount would increase by $1.50 each year, or by a total of $10.50 a month by the seventh year.
A major Indiana utility company has agreed to pay a $1 million fine in settling a federal complaint that it discriminated against some 1,500 female or black job applicants.
The Petersburg Generating Station, about 120 miles southwest of Indianapolis, has been called a “super polluter” by environmental groups, with violations for excess sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide particulate matter and sulfuric mist.
A Purdue University-affiliated startup recently received a $6.9 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop a system to predict when nuclear reactor components need maintenance or replacement before they fail and cause power outages.
Although the petition doesn’t say how much the utility will seek from customers, a Vectren spokeswoman said the project will cost $164 million.
The groups say they’re concerned about potentially “dangerous air pollution” being released by Riverview Energy’s planned $2.5 billion project in southern Indiana.
Duke said Thursday it will lease about 10 acres from the Purdue Research Foundation for the project it calls the Tippecanoe County Solar Power Plant.
More than 800,000 customers of Duke Energy Indiana could see their monthly bills jump if the utility receives state permission to increase rates for the first time in about 15 years.
Vincent Parisi will become the fourth leader of IPL since 2015, managing a utility that serves about 500,000 customers in central Indiana.
The utility had wanted to build the gas-fired plant to replace aging coal-burning units, but regulators said the plan was too risky and inflexible.
Scott Pruitt, the scandal-ridden former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, registered Thursday as fossil-fuels interests in the state fight to block the proposed closure of several coal-fired power plants.