INDIANAPOLIS (WPTA) – Newly unsealed records show NIPSCO admitted to overcharging more than 3,500 natural gas customers — billing them double their actual usage — and did not inform state regulators about the problem for nearly a year.
Regulators kept in the dark for months
Robert C. Sears, NIPSCO’s Director of Regulatory Policy and Demand Side Management, testified before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission that the company discovered the billing error in October 2024 while installing new smart meters.
Sears said old mechanical meters had been installed incorrectly, so the meter indexes were not rotating at the correct drive rate. That meant 3,542 customers were double-billed and 317 customers were billed at half their true usage.
NIPSCO did not notify the IURC of the problem until September 2025. The regulatory body held a hearing in November, and 21Alive was the first to report on the discrepancies in early December…