Utility Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) has initiated an aggressive strategy to be coal free within the next 10 years. While the utility will integrate solar and wind power throughout the state to provide for power for its customers, Indianans may feel the pinch of up to a 12 percent price increase. 

“There’s no question that costs go up in Indiana,” Ben Zycher, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute told the Indiana Business Daily. “Costs are going to up by how much it’s hard to know, but it’s not trivial.”

While solar and wind power will be renewable resources, the total costs for customers may be a disadvantage, costing the average household more than $100 per year, according to the Heartland Institute.

“The basic reason is wind and solar power are much more expensive than coal power or gas power,” Zycher said. “You also have to have more transmission lines because unlike conventional power plants that can be sited anywhere, you bring the coal, the fuel, the gas, whatever, to the power plant. Wind and solar facilities have to be located where the wind blows and the sun shines, and so you can’t optimize their locations very well. Because they are unreliable, they can't be scheduled because wind and solar power you don’t know when the wind will be blowing and the sun will be shining. They have to be backed up with conventional power plants that have to be operated inefficiently. They have to be cycled up and down whether the wind is blowing or not." 

NIPSCO has indicated it will pass on the additional cost burden for implementation of the wind and solar system integration to customers while claiming the move will save consumers over the long haul.

For Indiana, it is a step away for one of its main consumables. Indiana is seventh in the nation for coal production, which generates 68 percent of its electricity, according to the Heartland Institute.