Indiana regulators have approved a $1.3 billion solar, battery, and transmission project that AES Indiana will build to power a Google data center in Monrovia. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) signed off on October filings under a 2025 law requiring large-load data centers to cover at least 80 percent of the generation and transmission costs they create. It's the first data center project filed under that law.

Google's bill goes beyond the statutory floor. Commissioner Joby Jerrells noted AES Indiana had testified the company would pay at least 100 percent of project costs.

"Not only does this agreement satisfy the statutory requirement, it exceeds it substantially," Jerrells said.

What gets built?

The package spans generation, storage, and a new 345kV backbone connection:

• Two standalone battery energy storage systems (BESS) rated at 200MW and 130MW
• A hybrid project pairing 130MW of solar with a 130MW BESS
• A 10-mile (16km) 345kV transmission line tying the assets to an on-site substation
• A planned 1,200MW substation at the data center site

AES puts total construction costs at roughly $1.3 billion. For scale, that's about two-thirds of the $2 billion Google committed to its Fort Wayne campus in 2024 — and Monrovia is the smaller of the company's two Indiana projects.

Who pays what?

According to local reporting, AES US Utilities CEO Gustavo Garaviglia broke the costs into two streams: Google pays $32.3 million directly for connection facilities, while $73.8 million in network upgrades enters AES's transmission rate base. The contract runs at least 15 years.

It also carries anti-cost-shifting provisions. If Google scales back or drops the project, those clauses are designed to keep the shortfall from landing on regular ratepayers — the core concern the 2025 law was written to address.

For Indiana ratepayers, the structure matters more than the megawatts. A 1,200MW load is enormous by utility standards, and under the old rules a project of this size could have shifted grid costs onto households. Here, the legislature's 80 percent floor plus Google's 100 percent commitment closes that gap for the contract's duration.

Where is the site?

News that Google was behind the Monrovia development first surfaced last October. The application covers land in Morgan Township, east of Monrovia, bounded by Keller Hill Road, North Antioch Road, Indiana 42, and West Union Church Road — 18 parcels held by ten different owners.

Plans show five buildings. Four appear to be large data centers, with a fifth, smaller structure east of the transmission line.

Google's Indiana footprint keeps growing. Beyond Monrovia, the company bought 900 acres in Fort Wayne and committed around $2 billion in 2024, then expanded that campus in September 2025.

What does the ruling signal?

The IURC's decision gives other Indiana utilities a working template: file the project, show the customer paying at or above 80 percent, and build in protections for ratepayers if the load disappears. Expect more filings structured the same way as data center demand moves through the state's interconnection queue.