Op/Ed: AES Indiana doesn't provide reliable service yet customers' bills keep increasing

When you are a monopoly electric utility, you have one primary job: Keep the lights on.

As we have seen in our city recently, AES Indiana has colossally failed at that one job.

Days after strong storms downed power lines, thousands of Indianapolis residents were sweltering in record-high heat waiting for the utility to restore power. A storm that arrived in June wreaked havoc through the Fourth of July holiday for many.

And where was AES Indiana leadership? Nowhere to be found.

Perhaps that’s because the monopoly utility, shortly before this massive and inexcusable service failure, announced it’s seeking a 13% rate hike set to begin next summer.

In the press release proposing the increase, AES Indiana CEO Kristina Lund said, “Through this rate review request, we are making meaningful changes and improvements that will provide significant benefits to our customers, including new technology offerings and investments in our infrastructure that will provide a better overall experience for our customers.”

AES Indiana customers deserve a better overall experience right now — without paying more per month. The monopoly utility has plenty of cash; they just haven’t been running their business very well.

The power lines that went down in late June have been overgrown by trees and shrubs for years, the result of poor vegetation management. That kind of deferred maintenance — imagine not changing the oil in your car for years — is a hallmark of AES Indiana’s shoddy approach to daily operations.

More: Customers paying for idled AES plant. They're also paying to buy power it should have produced

Without fail, they always come with their hands out asking ratepayers to foot the bill for their negligence.

For nearly one year, AES's Eagle Valley fossil gas-fired power plant sat idle, failing to provide electricity to customers, but customers continued to pay for the power plant in their monthly bills.

More: AES is asking customers to pay extra as Eagle Valley power plant sits offline for 6 months

While Eagle Valley was not producing electricity, AES Indiana had to buy almost $71 million in power in the marketplace to replace the power Eagle Valley failed to generate — and then asked customers to foot the bill.

Organizations like Citizens Action Coalition fight this kind of financial overreach every day with every monopoly-owned utility in the state. If no one is in that watchdog role, the utilities would just keep gouging customers and fattening up their bottom lines. Rather than providing reliable service, AES has made its priority extracting as much wealth from Indianapolis residents' wallets as possible.

That’s one of the many reasons why Indiana needs more options when it comes to generating power, especially options that empower individuals and communities to embrace energy freedom.

Monopolies are going to do what monopolies do. They have no competition, which means they have no incentive to put their customers first.

That’s why we need our elected officials and state utility regulators to do their jobs to ensure utilities are delivering quality service at an affordable cost, not gouging consumers and then leaving them literally in the dark for days.

Grant Smith is former board president of Citizens Action Coalition.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Customers get lackluster service yet AES Indiana wants a 13% rate hike