CenterPoint Energy Indiana 2025 Integrated Resource Plan
Synapse supported Sierra Club’s engagement in CenterPoint Energy Indiana’s 2025 Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) process. Synapse participated in the utility’s year-long technical stakeholder process and supported Sierra Club in comments on the final IRP. We examined CenterPoint’s Encompass modeling results and input assumptions, with a focus on CenterPoint’s plans for its remaining coal-burning units, its proposed long-term resource additions, and its process for incorporating prospective large-load customers into its IRP.
Our primary recommendation was that CenterPoint should end coal-burning at F.B. Culley Unit 3 by 2030, which it can achieve by converting the unit to gas within the next 1–2 years. As part of its next IRP, we also recommended that CenterPoint re-evaluate whether battery storage paired with solar and wind would provide lower cost capacity and energy than additional natural gas resources. Over the long term, CenterPoint should continue testing the market to see if it would be economic to add solar and wind as energy resources to displace generation from fossil resources. Finally, we recommended that CenterPoint take steps to serve new large load with clean energy resources and ensure tariffs and protections are in place to shield existing ratepayers from the impacts of prospective large load.