Evergy Requests to Recover Costs Related to Generation Capacity, Grid Modernization for Evergy Missouri West Customers - Seite 2

Evergy’s request includes the recovery of investments related to two natural gas plants to help ensure Evergy Missouri West has sufficient generation capacity for customers and to reduce Missouri West’s exposure to market price volatility for electricity purchased from the market. Evergy is also asking to recover investments in the electric grid to improve reliability and resiliency, as well as to recognize the end of a transmission-related credit that had been offsetting costs. Cost reductions, including pension and benefits savings, as well as growth in customer energy demand helped cut about $24.5 million from the request.

As part of this request, Evergy Missouri West has asked the commission to review a pending acquisition of 148 megawatts (or 22.2% interest) of Dogwood Energy Center, a 668 MW natural gas plant in Pleasant Hill, Mo., as a cost-effective resource to serve customers. Evergy Missouri West needs additional capacity and energy resources to meet growing customer demand for energy and reduce reliance on market-priced purchased power.

Crossroads Energy Center, a 300 megawatt natural gas plant in Clarksdale, Miss., serves customers in Evergy Missouri West today and helps ensure customers have the needed energy capacity for their growing energy needs. Evergy is asking to recover the transmission costs associated with the plant as it is a necessary resource. Without approval to recover these costs, the benefits of this capacity will be lost in 2029, requiring the company to find alternative and potentially more costly ways to provide 300 megawatts of generation capacity. In past studies, Crossroads has been identified as the most cost-efficient way to meet capacity requirements for Evergy Missouri West customers.

The request also includes recovery of investments made to upgrade and modernize the power grid. Evergy has replaced a large number of aging power poles, overhead power lines, and underground cables. Along with these projects, newly deployed automation technology communicates grid-health indicators back to Evergy. These new tools inform a predictive-maintenance program to reduce outages and, when outages occur, help to reduce outage length by isolating events and assisting in cause identification and restoration planning.