'They have to do better.' Left without power for days, AES customers demand answers

When Ravenswood resident Kat Hilderbrand's power went out for several days earlier this summer, she said she lost at least $1,100 worth of groceries, had to rely on eating fast food and sat in her air conditioned car outside to stay cool.

She says she's used to it. During the winter, her power has gone out for days at a time. Luckily she has a wood-burning fireplace though, unlike many of her neighbors who were left in the cold.

The most recent incident started after an intense derecho storm ripped through Central Indiana on June 29. Nearly 190,000 electric customers lost power at their homes and businesses — some for days at a time. Almost 80,000 of those outages happened to AES Indiana customers.

During that time, AES customers lost hundreds, even thousands of dollars on perishable food and medicine, damages that the company says it can't be held liable for.

Amid customer complaints, two consumer advocacy groups filed a joint petition in July for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to formally investigate AES' practices during the storm.

AES spokesperson Kelly Young provided a statement that explains that the power company follows a sort of triage system when it comes to fixing power: start with transmission lines and substations, then critical community needs like hospitals and fire stations, then large neighborhoods and finally individuals.

The statement said: "700+ AES Indiana line crews, tree crews, underground crews, contractors, neighboring utilities and in-office support personnel worked 24/7 on restoration efforts (after the June 29 storm). Crews worked to restore power as quickly and safely as possible. Our power restoration process is designed to address emergency situations first and then to restore power to as many customers as possible."

As for Hilderbrand, her power went out for a day during the storm, came back on for 12 hours and then went out for another three days. But she doesn't believe power outages are always tied to big weather events and doesn't support the rate increase while she feels AES power is so unreliable.

“It’s on a regular basis,” Hilderbrand said, “It doesn’t have to be a storm.”

Behind the rate hike

Locals' frustrations were only compounded by the fact that AES had filed to increase monthly costs for customers for the first time in five years just one day before the storm hit.

AES projects Indiana customers' bills to increase by 13%, an average of $17, by next summer. According to AES’ website, the rate increase is a result of the increased operating costs due to inflation and the need to invest in the reliability of their services.

However, the Citizens Action Coalition recently accused AES of misleading customers about the rate increases. AES confirmed the coalition's claim that the 13% bill increase was based on soaring energy rates that customers were paying in 2022, not the lower rates customers have been paying this summer, according to the coalitions news release.

So in reality, the coalition says customers will be paying about 18.7%, or $23.65 more than they are now.

Customers want AES to be investigated

The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor and the Citizens Action Coalition filed a joint petition on July 11 requesting that AES Indiana’s “practices and procedures” be investigated by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

In the petition, the advocacy groups reason that, given the intensity of the storm itself, the magnitude of the outages and the amount of time it took AES to return power to all of its customers, the regulatory commission should head an investigation. The petition claims that AES did not communicate with customers accurately and effectively on Twitter, too.

The hope is that, in learning how AES prepared for and managed the storm, the regulatory commission can “ensure Indiana ratepayers are receiving the best services under the circumstances and that meaningful investments have been made to protect the reliability and resiliency of its industry,” according to the petition text.

Executive director of Citizens Action Coalition Kerwin Olson told IndyStar his primary concern is to learn more about why it took what he called a state franchised monopoly the time it did to fix Hoosier's power.

"We're talking about monopoly companies who collect billions of dollars from the public in utility bills on an ongoing basis, deliver hundreds of millions of dollars of earnings to their shareholders," Olson said. "We would like to understand why thousands of their customers suffered for almost a week without electricity."

Several customers took to Twitter to share their complaints about the company's response to outages, with one claiming a live wire was down for days, another complaining of food loss and water damage after days without power and another saying she had to find shelter for her 1-year old child.

AES: investigation isn’t necessary

A week after the joint petition was filed, AES Indiana issued a 27-page document response. In it, the utility company claims that it “was prepared to and did address the impact of this storm with significant resources per its well-established storm restoration plan.”

The company goes on to question the basis for the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor and Citizens Action Coalition petition, arguing that the groups did not supply adequate information to suggest that AES responded to the mass June 29 outages unreasonably.

AES pointed out that there is existing framework within the company and the regulatory commission for customers to issue complaints, which the commission should "adhere to" prior to leading a formal investigation. The utility company also said it already sends power outage and major storm reports to the commission. Furthermore, the petition noted that, while the company's Twitter presence may have been confusing, it was an important effort to keep customers informed in real-time.

"While such real time efforts are challenging and perhaps confusing, they are not grounds that warrant a Commission decision to open a formal Commission investigation in addition to the existing Commission storm reporting and individual customer complaint framework," AES said in the statement.

Finally, AES said that the derecho was the "most severe" storm to hit Indianapolis in several years, which led to the long wait times for power restorations.

"While the restoration of service is of the upmost (sic) importance to the Company, such efforts must reasonably give way to Mother Nature and the safety of the workforce engaging in service restoration," the statement said.

Looking forward

Bob Culp lives near Hilderbrand in a Glendale neighborhood. He and his fiancée had to throw away everything in their fridge and freezer during their three-day-long power outage over the Fourth of July weekend. They tried to keep things cool with ice, but that wasn't much help as temperatures reached into the mid-80s, proving irritating for Culp and his three elderly dogs.

Culp said he's hopeful that the Citizens Action Coalition will be able to "hold AES accountable," especially considering rate hikes that he thinks are unfair given the circumstances. It just shouldn’t have taken “that long,” to restore power that weekend, Culp said.

“At some point, they have to do better, right?” he said, “It doesn’t seem fair that they should ask for more money from us to (make investments) when it didn’t feel like they were using our money well the first time.”

On Tuesday, the regulatory commission announced its plan to lead a technical conference between the advocacy groups and AES Indiana on Sept. 11.

There, the regulatory commission has requested that AES Indiana come prepared to answer questions about its response to the outages between June 29 and July 2. It is possible that the case will be combined with a separate regulatory commission case on the AES rate increases.

Contact the reporter Tory Basile at vbasile@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Without power for days, AES customers demand answers, oppose rate hike