Assessment of Clean Energy Alternatives to New Natural Gas Resources: Part 2

About this Report

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. Much has changed since then, justifying a reassessment of each of the utilities' plans, such as

  1. The historical passing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022 to dramatically reduce the cost of clean energy resources,

  2. Natural gas price spikes,

  3. Extreme weather events increased in frequency, and

  4. Midcontinent Independent System Operator and PJM began undertaking processes to update market constructs.

Prepared by Strategen Consulting Inc. for Advanced Energy United, this report finds that the IRA enables significant savings and makes battery storage with equivalent capacity more economical 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 assets and fuel price volatility risk. Savings in subsequent years are anticipated to be even greater.

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