What Is NIPSCO?

NIPSCO stands for Northern Indiana Public Service Company

NIPSCO is the Public Utility for Natural Gas and Grid Electricity in Northern Indiana.

What does this mean?

What this means is that under Federal and Indiana State Law, and supporting Federal & State Regulations, if you live in Northern Indiana within the agreed upon boundaries, and are not lucky enough to be 'Off The Grid' or within a Rural Electric Cooperative that dot some of the rural counties of the state (example: http://www.nremc.com/ ), then you have no choice legally but to get your grid energy and natural gas from NIPSCO within this geographic territory for which they have been given a Monopoly by the Federal Government. Like Ma Bell in the days of old, or Standard Oil if you can remember even earlier, they are 'The' utility for Northern Indiana.

Is NIPSCO Public or Private?

Umm... mostly private, but with a lot of regulation.. they are owned by a parent company that is definitely 'For Profit' called NiSource
https://www.nisource.com/
NIPSCO appears to be the biggest of the various utilities they own. The others seem to focus on Gas, not on Electrical transmission or generation. To their credit, they are headquartered in Merillville, near Gary and Chicago, but within the territory of NIPSCO, so they are local, despite holdings all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Coast, but it makes me wonder if they are this bad here, what they must be like where they don't live!
They are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the Stock Code NI
Despite being for profit, they get around anti-trust regulations, anti-monopoly laws, because of special deals carved out for public utilities. They were regulated for years under this act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company_Act_of_1935
but it still allowed them to control territories and transmission lines monopolistically, but with oversight. it was updated during the Bush Administration to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005
I am not a lawyer, this stuff is complex, but somewhere in here, it makes it legal for NIPSCO to not have to compete for your business, as long as it doesn't 'abuse' you, since it's price hikes are regulated by State boards and federal and state agencies, and it's business practices are regulated by the IRS, Energy Regulators, and likely a bunch of other people... So it is a monopoly, in the era that is supposed to be post monopoly, and for profit, despite the critical nature that grid electricity now plays in modern American Life. it's almost like a government in ways that are bad (strong authority and indispensable services) but for profit in ways that are bad (they aren't that accountable to you, despite regulations and protests, since price is not market driven, and they have no competition.) So as a resident of Northern Indiana, they are your electric and Natural Gas provider, simple as that according to how the big world works.

What are their responsibilities?

NIPSCO has to sell you electricity and natural gas in this territory if you want it and can pay for it. They have to maintain the infrastructure for that purpose, like pipelines and powerlines and poles. They have to repair it after a storm, read your meter, send you a bill, and respond if you decide to move your meter or dig around a line. They are likely to be running something, either gas, electricty, or both, down just about every road in Northern Indiana. is it easy? no, but there are hundreds of utilities around the US and the world that do it successfully.

How does NIPSCO make Electricty?

If there is a God, or Karma in the fashion of My Name Is Earl, this might be a big part of the reason that NIPSCO sucks so bad.. because they make Electricity the dirty old fashioned way.. a way that anyone paying attention has know had problems for 40 years or more, but due to profit motive, or they might argue price pressures and public oversight, they make it almost completely from Coal.
They own 5 plants, 5 of the perhaps 28 plants large and small in the State of Indiana (Notre Dame University has it's own power plant, for instance, so they don't have to deal with NIPSCO, which I know they thank Touch Down Jesus and Our Lady the Blessed Virgin for every day), and 4 of them are Dirty Old Coal Plants.. the kind of plants that Obama, the greenies, scientists, ecologist and everyone else are talking about. Why? Because they are the lowest common denominator, the easy path to grid energy, the cheap option of the last half century, and they pollute, cause Global Climate Change (remember last winter?) and kill people with their pollution through lung diseases and other contamination..
https://www.nisource.com/docs/default-source/pdf/2012-nisource-greenhouse-gas-report.pdf
http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-health_effects_from_US_power_plant_emissions
they also cause Acid Rain,
http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what/
And the disfiguration of the Appalachain Mountains through Mountaintop removal mining operations:
http://old.mountainjustice.org/facts/steps.php
 and mercury poisoning in oceans, that make you sick if you eat more than 3 cans of tuna in a day, despite no government warnings about how much Mercury released from coal builds up in Large Fish, including older Tuna, because of Lobbying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish

What is NIPSCO's Electric Generation Capacity?

According to Wikipedia, NIPSCO's 4 coal plants, Bailly In Chesterton, Michigan City on Lake Michigan, DH Mitchell in Gary, and Rollin M. Schafter in Wheatfield, have a capacity of about 3.47 gigawatts of Power.. 0.38% of all the Power Capacity in the US in 2005 according to Sourcewatch.
The Obama Administration negotiated with NIPSCO to shut down DH Mitchell because it was so polluting, but I am not sure the closure has occurred yet.
http://ftp.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dean_Mitchell_Generating_Station
NIPSCO tried to shut it down a few times before.. once in 2001
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=987&print=1
and again in 2008
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/nipsco-wants-mitchell-plant-down/article_6ac6a750-83b4-5249-b69d-d63146cfaa8c.html
but no dice.. it appears to be still open but there seem to be EPA reports that are working to decomission it.
http://www.indianaeconomicdigest.com/main.asp?SectionID=31&SubSectionID=64&ArticleID=57931
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/guest-commentary/guest-commentary-indiana-should-consider-public-private-model-in-meeting/article_72606b94-f240-59bd-b646-4470c7d8075f.html
http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/northern-indiana-public-service-company-clean-air-act-settlement
http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys2/nipsco_mitchell_final.pdf

There are about a half million people in Northern Indiana in their territory electrical service territory, so these plants are unlikely to be running at full capacity all the time, since it usually takes about 1kw per person of capacity.. industry, of which there used to be and still is some heavy industry in Northern Indiana, can account for some of this extra capacity, but it is fair to say they have a lot of capacity. Are they exporting it?

Recently they bought more, the Sugar Creek Generating Station near Terre Haute, outside of their generation area:
http://www.ccj-online.com/nipsco-sugar-creek-generating-station/
While we at NIPSCO Sucks applaud that they made the half step to invest in a natural gas plant, which under perfect conditions is about half as polluting as Coal, is it too little too late? what did Northern Indiana deserve that it didn't get in terms of foresight to be saddled with such a backwards utility and such a large share of America's pollution.
Indiana Ranks 4th in Coal Pollution
Hoosiers like to be ahead.. we take pride in our education system, the music in our schools, our hard work and friendlyness, our openness to innovation and their impression that a conservative state can be a success without being mean spirited... NIPSCO and their other Utility Peers have put Indiana 4th from worst in a major indicator... it isn't the Indiana way, but sure enough, it's there in black and white. It might not be so bad if it came with cost savings, and it used to, but if you can decipher your bill, you will see that the price from NIPSCO is now creeping over the national average to about 10 cents per KWH.. that's what dragging your feet for 40+ years will get you...