As of November 22, 2024, Indiana Michigan Power, an American Electric Power (AEP) utility, filed a joint settlement with the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC), Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, the Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), and the Data Center Coalition, outlining the terms for connecting new large loads to the grid. [1] The settlement with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission requires new large-load customers, such as data centers, to make long-term financial commitments to ensure they pay for the costs to serve them and that those costs are not passed on to existing customers.
The agreement comes amid rapid data center development in Northern Indiana. Amazon Web Services made progress on an $11 billion data center campus near New Carlisle, Indiana, and Google was building a $2 billion data center in Fort Wayne. The settlement recognizes the energy needs of new large customers and proposes additional commitments that the customers must meet when establishing electric service. Furthermore, the companies that are signatories to the joint settlement – AWS, Microsoft, and Google – have each agreed to provide an annual contribution of $500,00 for five years to the Indiana Community Action Association.