INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC) and Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana filed a petition with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) on July 11, asking the regulating agency to look into AES Indiana’s “practices and procedures for storm outage restoration,” and to see what caused the power losses and what complicated repair.
A line of thunderstorms June 29 intensified in Indiana, according to the National Weather Service. The storms turned into a derecho, with high winds in excess of 70 mph, which downed tree limbs and power lines throughout central Indiana. Neighborhoods on the east side were particularly affected due to many mature trees along streets in the area. AES Indiana informed the IURC that power outages had affected more than 70,000 customers, the petition says.
By the next afternoon, the AES Indiana reported the outages had affected about 80,000 customers, and nearly 40,000 were still without electricity at the time of the report. The utility said it had hundreds of employees working to restore power.
However, thousands of customers remained without power through July 3. AES Indiana said it had restored electricity to all of its customers the evening of July 4 — but the petition notes some customers wrote on Twitter that they still didn’t have power.
Meanwhile, AES Indiana recently filed a request asking regulators to let it raise base rates for the first time in five years. The utility’s requested hike would add about $17 to the average customer’s monthly bill.