Gary, Indiana is a warning: energy independence has gotten personal

Nearly two weeks after a summer derecho knocked out power, tens of thousands of people in Gary, Indiana were still without power, with many taking to social media to highlight the reality of living through a prolonged blackout. While the utility made excuses, the data centers that powered the community’s social media presence were humming along, built on a very different assumption: that the power MUST stay on. And, if you tilted your head just so, that humming might have sounded like a warning. According to initial reports from NW Indiana utility NIPSCO, nearly 370,000 people were left without power in the immediate aftermath of the derecho that tore through Gary, Indiana on August 11th. As of August 20th, more than 63,000 were still without power. “As a result of there being no power, children have not been in attendance at school and some workers have not been able to work,” wrote Sherdell Baker, for Ebony. “In addition to having to drive in pitch-black darkness.” As of this morning, power was restored to “nearly all” Gary residents, but even with the lights in their homes back on, those residents have lots of questions about the data centers in Gary. Data centers which, according to some reports, never lost power. An Instagram creator calling herself victoria_phd has a great post about this – it starts off a bit conspiratorial, but gets to the part about the proliferation of data centers in the region and the role Indiana residents believe they played in the prolonged outage soon enough. Give it a quick watch: Regardless of how you feel about the impact that Gary’s demographics may have had on NIPSCO’s disaster response, or whether or not you think data centers are, “essential to keep America in the driver’s seat of the global economy,” as my father-in-law claims, the fact remains that a powerful storm came through and knocked out power, and it was the people, not the data centers, who got their power back last. The lesson here (as I wrote a few weeks ago) is that weather-related grid outages – whether they’re caused by wildfires, mudslides, derechos, tornadoes, ice storms, hurricanes, heat waves, or some other disaster I’m lucky enough to have forgotten about – read like statistics when they’re happening over there, but get personal real quick when they’re happening to you. And policies that roll back clean energy investment and make it both easier and more profitable for big companies to pollute the air, land, and water around us with harmful carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses are making the problem objectively worse. And this isn’t just an Indiana problem. AI data centers are expected to triple their share of US electricity consumption, from 4.4% in 2023 to 12% by 2028. Data centers drove half of all US electricity demand growth last year. In Virginia, they already consume more than one in four kilowatt-hours generated in the state. The downstream impact on residential customers is direct. Dominion Energy in Virginia proposed its first base-rate increase since 1992 — adding about $8.51 per month in 2026 — driven in large part by infrastructure needed to serve data center load. The national average residential electricity rate hit 17.45 cents per kWh in January 2026, a 9.5% increase year-over-year, far outpacing regular inflation. FRED LAMBERT Electrek Editor-in-Chief Those rising rates are a real concern for people and small businesses, but expensive energy is better than no energy at all, and infrastructure (rather than inflation or incentives) is what’s driving not just the home solar business in 2026 – but the home battery business as well. “Extended outages like the one in Northwest Indiana show why backup power matters,” explains Kristina Zagame, Senior Researcher, Electrification at EnergySage. “A battery system can keep essentials like refrigeration, lights, medical equipment, and communications running when the grid goes down. Homeowners should compare their options and choose a system designed around what their family truly needs to power.” How much battery do YOU need? We ran a survey back in May asking Electrek readers how much battery they thought they’d need to feel secure in a prolonged outage, and the results were interesting enough to inspire a separate post featuring breakdown of different options to go along with the responses. That said, a backup battery is little more than a Band-Aid for a much bigger problem: local leaders and utility monopolies seem to have plenty of money to give tax breaks and other incentives to corporate data centers these days, but don’t seem to have enough to prioritize water and energy security for the people they’re supposed to serve – and those people are starting to demand real answers. Gary residents want answers YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: - Home solar in rural America: a storm just took out your power, now what? - Home solar + battery + EV, one GMC Sierra EV driver shares their experience - Tales from the comments: Electrek readers share their real-world home solar results If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. 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