Publish Date: May 2, 2023

In 2020 and 2021, three of Indiana’s investor-owned utilities, Northern Indiana Public Service Company (“NIPSCO”), Indiana Michigan Power Company (“I&M”), and CenterPoint Energy Indiana (“CenterPoint”), proposed to build new natural gas-fired combustion turbine (“CT”) plants in their Integrated Resource Plans.

In the time since those plans were announced, market dynamics have changed significantly. The U.S. Federal Government passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”) to dramatically reduce the cost of clean energy resources, natural gas prices spiked, extreme weather events increased in frequency, and MISO and PJM began undertaking processes to update market constructs. These changes justify a reassessment of each of the utilities’ plans.

This analysis, conducted by Strategen Consulting, finds that the IRA enables significant savings and makes battery storage with equivalent capacity more economic than each utility’s proposed CT. In the year of deployment, battery storage would provide savings of $3.4 million for NIPSCO, $66.2 million in savings for I&M, and $3.5 million in savings for CenterPoint, before taking into account additional factors such as stranded asset and fuel price volatility risk. Savings in subsequent years are anticipated to be even greater.

Please complete the form to download the assessment. 

Read Part 1 of the report, which compares Duke Energy Indiana’s proposed combined cycle natural gas plant with solar, wind, and energy storage, here.