NIPSCO officials are expected to announce results today of a five-month regrouping, which may include plans to purchase a gas-fired generating plant and wind-generated electricity.
On Thursday, the utility announced a consulting company has been evaluating options such as acquiring one or more natural gas-fired electric turbines and a number of conservation and wind-energy proposals.
When asked Thursday if the utility had entered into agreements to buy a power plant or wind-generated electricity, NIPSCO spokeswoman Colleen Reilly said she would reserve comment until today.
The CEO of NIPSCO parent NiSource Inc. is scheduled to discuss third-quarter earnings with Wall Street analysts and answer questions in a conference call at 8 a.m..
Both NIPSCO and NiSource will be issuing news releases today, Reilly said.
NiSource stock closed at $19.96 per share on Thursday, down 49 cents, or 2.4 percent, on trading volume of 2 million shares. Broader markets took a steep plunge on Thursday, with the Dow Industrial Average down 362 points. or 2.6 percent.
NiSource stock has been recovering since trading as low as $17.58 per share in early August.
After breaking off "advanced" sales talks with a company interested in buying NIPSCO's electric business in May, NiSource CEO Robert Skaggs Jr. told analysts options boiled down to reopening the closed Dean Mitchell Generating Station in Gary, buying power from other utilities or buying a power plant.
The utility has been buying significant amounts of power on the open market to meet customer demand since mothballing the Dean Mitchell plant in 2002. NIPSCO has 445,000 electric and 712,000 natural gas customers.
Late Thursday, NIPSCO filed a 20-year plan for meeting customer demands with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. Such filings, called integrated resource plans, are filed every two years.
The integrated resource plan was not available to the public on Thursday.
But a news release announcing the filing showed the company is making a dramatic break from previous filings in emphasizing renewable energy and customer incentive programs.
Specifically, the release said NewEnergy Associates, of Atlanta, Ga., had evaluated the "most viable options," including purchase of one or more combined cycle natural gas turbines and 100 megawatts of wind-generated electricity.
NewEnergy also evaluated plans that would give customers a discount on electric rates for agreeing to have their air conditioning turned off during peak demand hours.
"The big news is that we are instituting the idea of going to renewables like wind energy and demand-side solutions where customers have choices," Reilly said.
