Courier & Press published an op-ed by AEE's Sarah Steinberg explaining the concerns with CenterPoint's new natural gas power plant proposal. Read snippets below and the full article here.

Legally speaking, your electric utility is required to provide you service at the “lowest cost reasonably possible.”

That’s why it’s disappointing to see CenterPoint Energy propose to build a new natural gas power plant that is expected to run less than 10% of the time, at a cost of $900 million, or about $23 per month per residential customer. No matter how you look at it, it’s a bad deal. 

Hoosiers in CenterPoint’s service territory are already saddled with Indiana’s highest residential electricity rates and, on average, spend the highest percentage of their incomes on electric bills. Local businesses are struggling with workforce and supply chain issues as they try to make ends meet.

Even higher energy costs will make it more difficult for Evansville to attract new economic activity. But the power plant proposal also makes no sense in the context of CenterPoint’s laudable clean energy goals, which it claims to be some of the most ambitious in the utility industry.

Read the full article here.