An Indiana utility believes it has the perfect solution to a quandary vexing the power industry: How to satisfy data centers’ voracious appetite for power without burdening other customers with additional cost and risk.
For Merrillville, Indiana-based Nipsco, which supplies power in the state’s northern third, the first-of-a-kind approach for the utility industry involves creating a separate company, Nipsco Generation LLC (GenCo), to build and own the power plants to meet demand from so-called “megaload customers.”
The strategy was born to meet the need of AI data centers for quick access to vast amounts of power and to insulate existing customers from shouldering extra costs.
“I think through our GenCo, we really kind of cracked that code,” said Vince Parisi, Nipsco’s president, in an interview.
