Mayor: NIPSCO power limits are holding up Hammond data center proposals
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Summary
Hammond’s mayor told the City Council that lack of available megawatts from Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) is delaying a proposed data center; he said NIPSCO may add power within weeks but no formal city action was taken.
Mayor told the Hammond City Council on April 28 that proposed data-center projects are ready to move forward but are stalled because NIPSCO has not confirmed sufficient electric service.
The mayor said the city “doesn’t have neighbor problems. We have power problems,” and that the city is “literally waiting on NIPSCO.” He told the council he expects NIPSCO “will have power out there within the next 3 to 4 weeks.”
Why it matters: Council members and the mayor framed the issue as a bottleneck for a major private investment. The mayor said the specific data center under discussion would “pull more power than US Steel,” and expressed concern about proposals to treat data-center service differently in utility rate structures.
Councilman Kowinski asked about timing and whether NIPSCO had been contacted; the mayor said he was still trying to meet with NIPSCO’s CEO and would report back to the council after those discussions. No vote or directive to staff was recorded during the meeting.
Discussion points and context included the city’s legislative environment that makes Indiana attractive to data centers and the mayor’s repeated characterization that the primary barrier was megawatts from NIPSCO rather than neighborhood opposition or cooling constraints. The mayor also raised concerns about proposals that would move data-center service into separate entities, saying that “that’s no good” for local utility ratepayers.
No formal city action was taken on the data-center proposals at the meeting; the mayor said he would continue efforts to meet with NIPSCO and update the council.
Ending: Council members signaled interest in follow-up information; the mayor promised to report back after further conversations with NIPSCO.