Porter County

Updates, newest first

1. Sept. 4, 2025 QTS Union Township campus (Jeremiah A and B) · QTS calls county staff to withdraw its application, according to the commissioners' president. (Shorewood Forest News (solwd.net) / Post-Tribune, Sept. 6, 2025; DatacenterDynamics, Sept. 10, 2025)
2. May 13, 2025 QTS Union Township campus (Jeremiah A and B) · A standing-room-only town hall at the Porter County Expo Center draws more than 1,000 people, most opposed. (Shorewood Forest News (solwd.net) / Post-Tribune, Sept. 6, 2025)
3. May 1, 2025 Provident Realty Burns Harbor data center proposal · IBJ lists the Burns Harbor proposal among northwest Indiana projects scrapped after opposition. (Inside INdiana Business / Indianapolis Business Journal, May 1, 2025)
4. March 11, 2025 Agincourt Valparaiso data center proposal · The mayor announces Agincourt has withdrawn and released its option on the land. (Lakeshore Public Media, March 11, 2025; Inside INdiana Business / Indianapolis Business Journal, May 1, 2025)
5. June 10, 2024 Provident Realty Chesterton data center campus · Provident tells Chesterton officials it is withdrawing the campus and its 27-acre annexation request. (DatacenterDynamics, June 14, 2024; Inside INdiana Business (via The Times of Northwest Indiana), June 12, 2024)

Statewide

Indiana's 2019 data center law lets qualifying operators skip the 7% state sales and use tax on equipment and electricity for terms of up to 50 years, set by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC) based on how much is invested; a 2024 state tax incentive evaluation projected $2.2 billion to $13.2 billion in qualifying purchases by Amazon, Google and Microsoft, or roughly $150 million to $900 million in forgone sales tax. (WFYI / Mirror Indy, June 10, 2025; Inside INdiana Business / Indianapolis Business Journal, May 1, 2025; Purdue University Dept. of Agricultural Economics (presentation by Ben Inskeep, Citizens Action Coalition), July 7, 2026) Exemption cost: after a WTHR and Good Jobs First investigation, the IEDC reported more than $655 million in data center sales and use tax exemptions, about $561 million of it to Amazon; the figure leaves out local property tax abatements and some 2025 reports that were still missing. (The Sales Tax People (summarizing WTHR and Good Jobs First), June 23, 2026) HEA 1007 (2025) created a fast-track 'expedited generation resource' process for utilities expecting large load growth and requires that about 80% of the cost of new generation built for big new customers be charged to those customers. It also added tax credits for small modular reactor manufacturing. (WBOI / Indiana Public Broadcasting, April 15, 2025; Earthjustice (press release for Citizens Action Coalition), Nov. 10, 2025; 21Alive (WPTA), Jan. 29, 2026) HEA 1210 (2026, signed March 12, 2026) requires a qualified data center user to sign an agreement with local officials before it can use its sales tax award certificate. The Citizens Action Coalition says the act also directs a 1% payment on a data center's electricity use to the host community. (ION Analytics / DWM, June 2026; Citizens Action Coalition, March 2026) IURC Cause No. 46097 (approved Feb. 19, 2025): Indiana Michigan Power's large-load settlement for customers of 70 MW at one site or 150 MW in aggregate sets a contract of at least 12 years after a load-ramp period, an 80% minimum monthly billing demand, collateral requirements and exit fees. Signers included Amazon, Google, Microsoft, the Data Center Coalition, the consumer counselor (OUCC) and the Citizens Action Coalition (CAC). (Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, Feb. 19, 2025; American Electric Power / Indiana Michigan Power (company release), Feb. 19, 2025; Utility Dive, Feb. 20, 2025) The IURC approved NIPSCO's plan for a separate generation affiliate, NIPSCO Generation LLC (GenCo), in September 2025 and reaffirmed it on Nov. 19, 2025. GenCo builds and owns power plants for data center customers so that existing NIPSCO customers are shielded from those costs; the cause number was not confirmed in sources reviewed. (NiSource (company release), Sept. 24, 2025; Utility Dive, Nov. 25, 2025) IURC Cause No. 46322 (approved June 17, 2026) approved NIPSCO's 15-year special contract with Amazon Data Services, ramping to 2,400 MW by the end of 2032, along with a GenCo power purchase agreement for about 3,000 MW of new gas and battery capacity. Amazon-related costs go in a separate business segment kept out of other customers' rates; CAC opposed the settlement. (Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, June 17, 2026; NiSource via Business Wire (company release), June 23, 2026; FactSet Insight, Feb. 2, 2026) On Jan. 28, 2026, the IURC approved Indiana Michigan Power's expedited generation plan under HEA 1007; the utility expects its peak demand to nearly double by 2030, partly because of data centers. CAC had estimated the plan at more than $7 billion and argued at least 39% of its 2030 costs would fall on other customers. (21Alive (WPTA), Jan. 29, 2026; Earthjustice (press release for Citizens Action Coalition), Nov. 10, 2025) Gov. Mike Braun said in March 2026 that data centers coming to Indiana must supply all of their own energy, and on July 23, 2026, he signed the White House's expanded Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Both are policy commitments, not statutes. (Indiana Public Radio (WFYI), March 10, 2026; Indiana Capital Chronicle (via Indiana Public Media), July 23, 2026) Indiana data centers →