Amazon just ordered a staggering 3 GW of power in Indiana—a deal so massive it requires the local utility to effectively build a second shadow grid just to serve it. (Utility Dive)
The scale: The infrastructure plan (2.6 GW of gas + 400 MW storage) is larger than NIPSCO's entire current non-data center load, meaning one tech giant will soon consume more power than all the homes and businesses in Northern Indiana combined.
To prevent a ratepayer revolt, NIPSCO created a separate “GenCo” subsidiary to own these assets. This acts as a financial firewall, ensuring Amazon pays 100% of the $7B construction cost while regular customers actually get a ~$7/mo. bill credit from the profits.
The dirty secret: Environmentalists point out the new gas turbines will be built on the site of an old coal plant—and because they’ll run 24/7 for AI, they could emit 4X more carbon than the dying coal facility did last year.