MORGAN COUNTY — After months of anticipation, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) gave a green light to AES Indiana’s proposed network upgrades that will primarily power Google’s data center campus in Monroe Township.
Last week’s ruling is a win for the utility company and Google, and a potential blow to ratepayers, according to consumer advocate group Citizens Action Coalition (CAC) as well as dozens of local residents who filed a petition to intervene with the IURC in order to prevent AES from constructing the upgrades on local properties.
In order to serve Google’s data center campus, AES has proposed acquiring two standalone battery energy storage system resources (BESS) and a hybrid solar plus storage resource, according to last week’s IURC ruling.
Additionally, AES has proposed building a 10-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line connecting the future Antioch substation near Monrovia to the future Blue Bluff substation near the Eagle Valley Generating Plant in Martinsville.
This line — strong enough to power about 800,000 homes — is planned to roughly parallel Ind. 39 along the border of Bradford Woods. The 200-foot-wide path will affect 86 homeowners and involve about 240 acres of land, whether through easements or eminent domain.
AES first announced its partnership with Google back in April, though it was known before then that the company would service the data center. At the time, the company made great efforts to assuage fears that rates would go up as a result of new infrastructure for the data center.
“Google covers 100 percent of the energy its data centers consume, plus every dollar of new infrastructure needed to serve those facilities,” read AES Indiana’s partnership announcement back in April. “None of those costs are shifted to existing AES Indiana customers.”
The company said the agreement with Google would save existing customers more than $770 million over the next 15 years.
However, the announcement went on to say that the network upgrades would benefit everyone, not just Google.
“Google’s investment funds substations, transmission lines, and other upgrades that strengthen the entire grid — not just for the data center,” AES Indiana previously announced. “These improvements benefit all Central Indiana customers with greater reliability and resiliency.”
AES representatives previously testified to the IURC that the company projects Google will account for approximately 90 percent of the new infrastructure’s use, with the rest of the load benefiting other customers.
State law requires data centers and large electricity users to cover at least 80 percent of the costs reasonably assigned to it.
In its ruling last week, the IURC agreed with AES that the network upgrades will benefit ratepayers as well as Google, and therefore the costs of the upgrades will be allocated to all.
“Although (Google) may be the impetus for the network upgrades being made, this does
not preclude the upgrades from providing system-wide benefits,” the ruling reads. “Network upgrades, as the name implies, are upgrades or additions to the transmission network intended to provide reliability, resiliency, and stability to the system at large. As such, it is reasonable for the network upgrades to be treated as overall transmission assets serving all customers and allocated to all customers utilizing the transmission network based on the cost causation approach approved by the Commission.
“Just as (Google) will be allocated a portion of the existing network transmission infrastructure, it is reasonable for existing customers to also be allocated a portion of the network upgrades,” the ruling continues. “Thus, the Commission finds Petitioner’s proposed treatment of network upgrade costs is reasonable and ensures that the Customer will pay its fair share of the costs.”
The IURC ruling sparked outrage among the intervening parties — CAC and local residents.
Ben Inskeep, program director for CAC, posted on social media that the ruling would shift tens of millions of dollars of upgrade costs onto AES customers, “directly contradicting the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.”
The Ratepayer Protection Pledge is an initiative introduced by President Donald Trump to ensure that electricity and infrastructure costs associated with data centers are funded by tech companies rather than consumers.
“AES Indiana is blatantly misrepresenting its contract with Google,” Inskeep continued. “Don’t fall for it. It claims Google will pay 100 percent. But AES’s own testimony admits it based Google’s rates on only 90 percent (load factor) and that $74 million in network upgrades are being paid by all customers, not Google!”
Inskeep and CAC further criticized AES for requesting to keep some information between itself and Google confidential, including some testimony and portions of service agreements.
Multiple attempts to reach Inskeep for further comment were unsuccessful.
Autumn Sojka, one of the residents who filed a petition to intervene against AES, spoke of her “frustration” on Monday, and told The Correspondent she was “devastated for everyone” on the route selected by AES for the transmission line upgrades.
“We all kinda figured it would be approved, unfortunately,” Sojka said of AES’s proposed upgrades. “Everything AES asked for, they got.”
Sojka said the ruling was a little demoralizing, given how much work she and other residents did to oppose AES’s proposals. She blamed state and local officials for making it so easy for AES to get what it wanted.
“Legislation has been paving the way for this,” Sojka said. “We definitely need to change things legislatively to make it harder for these companies to just steamroll us before people even know what’s going on.”
Ultimately, Sojka was “hopeful” about the upcoming elections, and optimistic that incoming officials might be more receptive to resident concerns about data centers and related infrastructure. She added that she hopes people in other communities will be able to learn from Morgan County’s experience.
