Why Reliable Energy?
Reliable Energy, Inc. is dedicated to promoting a safe, reliable, and affordable energy supply through active legislation and regulatory efforts combined with a grassroots strategy.
Energy experts, such as the North American Electric Reliability Commission (NERC), have warned that maintaining a consistent power supply has become increasingly challenging for our nation’s grid operators. Among these operators, the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), which provides services in 15 U.S. states, including Indiana, has identified a pressing need for additional power resources. According to MISO and other grid operators, the decision to replace reliable power sources with intermittent sources like wind and solar is contributing to the unreliability of the electrical grid.
Reliable Energy advocates for an “all of the above” energy strategy that utilizes the state’s abundant resources, such as coal, while also promoting innovation. It is essential to ensure that Hoosier households and manufacturers have access to reliable power and are not exposed to rolling blackouts, as experienced in California. The state’s extreme weather conditions, with hot summers and cold winters, make maintaining a consistent power supply imperative.
Reliable Energy emphasizes the importance of a reliable energy supply and advocates for affordable electric rates. In recent years, Indiana’s utility rates have significantly increased due to the closure of many of the state’s coal plants. As a result, Indiana’s ranking for utility rates has dropped to 29th in the country, a significant decline from its previous position as the fifth lowest. Please take a look at the chart below.
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“As this Commission considers other potential reforms related to regional transmission planning and development, it is imperative that incentives like the [Construction Work in Progress] Incentive, Abandoned Plant Incentive, and [regional transmission organization] participation adder are all revisited to ensure that all the costs and risks associated with transmission construction are not unfairly inflicted on consumers while transmission developers and owners stand to gain all the financial reward.”
Mark Christie
FERC Commissioner
12/20/2023
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Meet the Merom Generating Station. 👋🏻
Hallador Energy Company owns and operates the Merom Generating Station, a 1,000-megawatt power plant in Sullivan County. Merom is what's known as dispatchable power: it runs when Indiana needs it, day or night, hot summer afternoon or frozen winter morning, regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.
Here's something worth knowing: Merom was scheduled to shut down in 2023. It didn't, and that decision is saving Indiana ratepayers real money.
Why keeping Merom open matters to your wallet.
To understand Hallador's recent announcement, you need to understand the difference between two words: energy and capacity.
Think of it like a coffee shop. Energy is the cup of coffee you actually buy and drink. Capacity is the guarantee that the coffee shop will be open, stocked, and ready to serve you whenever you walk in, even if you don't end up ordering that day.
When the grid is short on capacity, it's like a town with only one coffee shop that keeps cutting its hours. When everyone shows up at the same time, and there isn't enough coffee, prices spike. The same thing happens with electricity.
Earlier this month, an Indiana utility company agreed to pay Hallador over $1 billion across 12 years, not for electricity itself, but for the guarantee that Merom will be there, plugged in and ready, from 2028 through 2040. That utility is essentially telling you something important: reliable power is so scarce right now that it's worth over a billion dollars just to know it's available.
What it would cost if Merom weren't here.
If Merom had closed in 2023 as planned, that 1,000 megawatts of always-on power would be gone. Replacing it from scratch with a brand-new gas plant would cost $2.5 billion in construction alone, plus years of permitting and delays. That cost doesn't disappear. It gets passed directly to ratepayers through higher electricity bills.
By staying open, Merom is quietly holding down costs that would otherwise land on every Indiana family and business. The utility signing this deal is saying out loud what should be obvious: it's cheaper to keep a working power plant running than to tear it down and build a new one.
The bigger picture for Indiana.
Merom isn't an isolated story. Across Indiana and the broader Midwest, reliable power plants have been retiring while demand keeps growing, driven now not just by homes and businesses, but by AI data centers and industrial facilities that need massive amounts of firm, 24/7 electricity.
The result is a grid that is stretched thin, where capacity prices have more than doubled in recent years because there simply isn't enough always-on supply to go around. Every time a reliable power plant closes without a replacement, that scarcity gets worse, and every Indiana household and business pays for it.
Merom is proof that keeping reliable power plants online is one of the most practical things Indiana can do right now to keep electricity affordable. The grid is telling us clearly what it needs. The question is whether we're paying attention.
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🔋 Surging power demand. Skyrocketing energy needs. Indiana needs answers, and a new report has them.
The verdict? Keep our reliable existing fleet online and build new, efficient natural gas infrastructure. It's the fastest, cheapest, and most dependable path to powering Indiana's growth.
Don't take our word for it...see the full findings: mailchi.mp/aoenergy/is-indiana-the-next-it-state
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The Indiana coal industry remains a significant part of the state’s energy and industrial economy, especially in southwestern Indiana communities tied to mining, transportation, and power generation. Congressman Mark Messmer has recently highlighted those economic contributions in a commentary published in the Washington Examiner, emphasizing coal’s role in jobs, energy reliability, and regional investment.
📰: www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/4561177/southern-indiana-mining-powering-american-prosperity/
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"Reliable, affordable energy is the foundation of every family’s budget, every factory’s survival, and every nation’s ability to defend itself. Europe tried it first and is paying for it now. The question is whether Americans are paying attention."
The Iran War Shows the Energy Transition's Missing Math
www.dailysignal.com
The Iran conflict has delivered an uncomfortable reminder that energy is not an environmental talking point but a matter of national survival.1 CommentsComment on Facebook
Hoosier coal miners visiting the Indiana Statehouse to voice their support for commonsense legislation aimed at ensuring Indiana depends on reliable energy.
