By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana residents owed $45.6 million to the state’s “big five” investor-owned utilities in March, the most recent month for which complete data is available — with thousands among them cut off from service. Fewer were reconnected.

That’s according to data reported to Indiana’s Office of the Utility Consumer Counselor, current as of June 30, under a settlement agreement finalized last October. The five include AES Indiana, CenterPoint Energy, Duke Energy, Indiana Michigan Power, and NIPSCO.

“That sounds like an extraordinary amount of debt,” Citizens Action Coalition Executive Director Kerwin Olson said. The utility customer advocate group wasn’t a party in the settlement.

But the data still doesn’t include everyone.

Olson noted the settlement excludes the state’s next-largest utility company: Citizens Energy Group, a public trust providing natural gas, water and wastewater services to the Indianapolis area. It also leaves out numerous municipal and cooperative providers, as well as all water and wastewater providers, he added.

The above are subject to less Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission oversight.

Many In Arrears

About 186,000 Hoosier accounts were 60-plus days behind on bills in March — or about 5% of the 3.6 million total accounts — but customers of some utilities fared better.

The accounts don’t always equate to individual households, as some utilities providing both electricity and natural gas reported account data for both service types.

AES Indiana — which provides electricity to residents in the greater Indianapolis area — reported the highest proportion of indebted customers in data running from September 2022 to April 2023.

A whopping 10% of AES Indiana customers owed the utility money. That rose to 38% over that period for low-income customers participating in the federally funded Energy Assistance Program , although AES logged accounts just 30 days behind on bills.

CenterPoint South, which provides gas and electric services to the Indiana’s southwest corner, reported the lowest proportions of customers in debt: just 2% of customers from September through March. The company didn’t disaggregate its low-income customers by region, but indebtedness rose to nearly 12% for EAP participants, logged as those at least day behind on bills.

But the lower rate of debt belies a higher average amount of debt: more than $470 owed per indebted CenterPoint South customer from September through March. NIPSCO reported the lowest average amount owed, at $96 per indebted customer from January 2022 through March 2023.

Indiana’s investor-owned utilities are regulated monopolies, meaning that they have exclusive service territories, and in exchange, the IURC regulates more aspects of their businesses.

Disconnections And Accommodations

Some utilities reported markedly higher proportions of service disconnections to indebted customers, but emphasized their efforts to support struggling consumers.

I&M data, for example, logged about 13,800 shut-offs over March, April and May 2023. That’s about 36% of the customers it said were in debt in that time period.

NIPSCO, meanwhile, said it disconnected about 18,900 customers from January 2022 to March 2023 — just 1.3% of its indebted customers over that time period. That was the lowest percentage.

But the data can’t tell the whole story, like how long a household went without utility service, Olson noted: hours, days, weeks or more. And without knowing service addresses, it’s unclear where struggling households are concentrated.

NIPSCO, which reported cutting off the lowest percentage of people, emphasized in a statement that “keeping our customers connected is the focus, and disconnection is a last-resort option.”

Spokeswoman Wendy Lussier said the utility offers bill payment assistance plans, energy assistance programs and energy efficiency solutions — like help programs for low-income seniors and active duty members of the military or veterans.

And NIPSCO has continued what began as a request from regulators to offer a 12-month flexible payment plan to EAP-participants — but it’s available to “all customers, regardless of income,” Lussier wrote.

She added that NIPSCO’s options are “actively” promoted in bill inserts, customer newsletters, in community outreach, on its website and app, on social media and more.

From March through May 2023, about 47% of Duke customers more than 60 days behind on bills had payment plans with the utility — the highest rate among the ‘big five.’ NIPSCO reported the lowest proportion — about 8% — covering January 2022 through March 2023.

But NIPSCO customers on payment plans appeared to owe the most on average: about $756 over its 14-month time period. CenterPoint North customers on payment plans owed the least: about $357, on average, from September 2022 to March 2023 .

All five utilities reported reconnecting significant numbers of people. But it’s not possible to calculate a reconnection rate using the data available because the numbers don’t necessarily correspond.

Less than a year of data left

Such information on Indiana’s largest utilities wasn’t publicly available until the pandemic severely disrupted Hoosier finances, leading the OUCC and consumer advocate groups like Olson’s to push for data reporting.

In May 2020, regulators asked numerous utility companies to report a larger range of data on a monthly basis, nearly all of it backdated to October 2019. They did so through 2021.

Advocates asked for another round of data last year. That case ended in a settlement finalized in October 2022, and was more limited in who was included.

It required the ‘big five’ to submit reports to the OUCC beginning in October that year and continuing through February 2023. Since March, the utilities have been filing quarterly.

And that reporting requirement will end after March 2024, according to the settlement. The agreement prevents the OUCC from re-asking for data until that point, and requires it to file a new request with regulators.

When asked if it planned to continue reporting after the requirement ends, AES Indiana and NIPSCO demurred.

“We haven’t considered whether or not reporting beyond this date would be required or necessary,” Young wrote.

“A decision on whether to continue providing this data has not yet been made by NIPSCO,” Lussier wrote.