For Duke Energy customers in Indiana, one application brings help and winter shutoff protection
Duke Energy is Indiana's largest electric company, serving somewhere near a million homes and businesses across central and southern Indiana — though not most of Indianapolis itself, which has a different electric company. This page is a plain-English guide to the help available on a Duke bill here: the Share the Light Fund, Duke's own payment plans and alerts, Indiana's winter shutoff protection and how to get it, a free home energy checkup, and where the state's Energy Assistance Program fits in.
One thing makes Indiana simpler than most states. The same community action agencies that take applications for the state's energy benefit also handle Duke's assistance fund, and the state application is what protects you from a winter shutoff. A single visit in the fall can accomplish all three.
- SCAM WARNINGS: Duke Energy will never demand immediate payment over the phone or threaten to disconnect your service within minutes. Scammers often impersonate your electric, gas, or water company and insist you pay immediately. Another common scam involves fake emails, texts, or websites offering utility bill discounts or Duke assistance programs that are designed to steal your personal or financial information.
The Share the Light Fund runs through Indiana's community action agencies
Share the Light is Duke's emergency bill fund (website at https://www.duke-energy.com/home/billing/special-assistance/share-the-light), paid for by the company, its foundation, its employees, and customers who add a donation to their bills. In Indiana, the money goes out through the community action agency network, where staff take applications and apply payments straight to Duke accounts. See the Indiana community action page for a list of locations. It can cover a past-due balance, a deposit, or the charges to reconnect or start service.
Whether you qualify depends on your income, the size of your household, and whether the local agency still has money, and there's a yearly limit on how much one account can receive. Duke has been adding money to the Indiana fund in winter and again in summer, so an agency that was out of funds in one season may have them in the next. If you hear no, ask when to check back. Dialing 211 also works for finding the agency that covers your county.
Indiana's winter shutoff protection starts with an application
Indiana law says that from the start of winter until the middle of March, no electric or gas utility in the state may shut off a residential customer who is eligible for the state's Energy Assistance Program and has applied for it. EAP is the state’s version of LIHEAP. The protection is not automatic. Applying is what gets it, and it begins as soon as your application is in, while the agency is still deciding whether you qualify.
Two practical points follow from that. Apply in the fall, when applications open, rather than waiting for a shutoff notice — the agencies can take a couple of months to process an application, and the benefit can take another month to show up on the bill. And if a disconnection is already scheduled, tell Duke you've applied and be ready to show proof, because the utility can't hold off on a shutoff it doesn't know is protected.
The Energy Assistance Program itself is a once-a-year benefit paid to your utility, with extra crisis help for households that are disconnected or nearly out of fuel. Applications open in the fall and run into spring. Income limits, documents, and the free weatherization that comes with the same system are all covered on our Indiana Energy Assistance Program page.
Three more protections apply whether or not it's winter. A statement from a doctor or public health official postpones a disconnection for about ten days if losing power would endanger someone's health. State law requires every utility to offer a delinquent customer a reasonable agreement to pay the balance off over time. And the moratorium doesn't erase anything — the bill grows all winter — so use those months to arrange help before the protection ends. Our page on utility disconnection rules by state shows how Indiana's rules compare.
What Duke itself will set up on a phone call
Duke offers Indiana customers interest-free installment plans that break a past-due balance into monthly payments, and it has stretched those plans longer for customers who need it — ask what length your account qualifies for. A due date extension adds a few days to one bill if you call before it goes past due.
Two free alerts are worth setting up even in a good month. A usage alert partway through the billing cycle shows what you've used so far and what the bill is likely to be. A budget alert sends a message when the bill passes an amount you choose, while there's still time in the month to cut back. Budget Billing rounds out the list, turning a year of high and low bills into a steadier monthly amount.
A free house call that finds what's impacting the bill
Any Duke customer in Indiana can request a Home Energy House Call — a free assessment, done in person or virtually, where an energy specialist goes through how the house uses electricity and leaves a kit of energy-saving products at no charge. It's the right first step when the problem isn't one bad month but a bill that runs high every month.
In certain selected neighborhoods, Duke's Neighborhood Energy Saver program has also installed improvements free of charge, so it's worth asking whether your area is included when you call. The state's free weatherization program, which does bigger work like insulation and furnace repairs, is separate and covered on the Indiana page linked above.
Watch out for salespeople or scammers using Duke's name
A con that shows up in Indiana starts with an offer that sounds like the free house call. Someone phones or knocks claiming to be "with Duke's savings program" and offering a free energy inspection — and the visit turns into a hard sell for insulation, a new heating system, or solar panels, with financing papers pushed across the table the same day.
Duke's real assessments are free, sell nothing, and never involve signing a loan. If a caller or visitor says they work with Duke, take their name, close the door or hang up, and call the number on your bill to ask — and never sign financing paperwork on the spot, because the honest version of any offer will still be there after you've checked.
Where to start and contact information
If you're a Duke customer in Indiana wondering where to start: in the fall, go to your community action agency and apply for the Energy Assistance Program, ask about Share the Light in the same visit, and let the application protect you through the winter. Any other time of year, start with a call to Duke (use the number on the bill to be extra safe) for a payment plan, then the agency for fund help. The main customer service page is at https://www.duke-energy.com/customer-service. The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority's Energy Assistance page at https://www.in.gov/ihcda/homeowners-and-renters/low-income-home-energy-assistance-program-liheap/ has the current season's dates and the statewide list of agencies.
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