Missouri Regulators Approve Consumer Protection Plan for Evergy Customers

Jefferson City, Mo. – The Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) voted 4-0 to approve a consumer protection plan that governs how data centers, and other power-hungry customers who move into Evergy’s service territory, pay for electricity. The Sierra Club, which supported the plan through a non-unanimous settlement, was actively engaged in the negotiation process in Kansas, where state utility regulators unanimously approved a substantially similar plan earlier this month. 

Power-hungry data centers are quickly increasing the demand for electricity, and utilities like Evergy are mostly building new gas-burning power plants, and extending the life of coal plants, to meet that demand. Large load tariffs are a tool that enables monopoly utility regulators, like the PSC, to establish rules that require large users of electricity to have financial skin in the game. 

The Sierra Club’s intervention substantially improved the terms of the Kansas tariff, changes that were included in the Missouri tariff and will provide additional protections to existing Evergy customers amid data center development. Those changes include: 

1. A decrease in the customer size threshold; from 100 megawatts to 75 megawatts, meaning smaller loads will qualify for the tariff, thus creating more protections for smaller Evergy customers, like families and small businesses.
2. An increase in the minimum contract term; from 10 years + a 5-year load ramp to 12 years + a 5-year load ramp. Increasing the duration of the term of the agreement by two years means more financial skin in the game for the entities adding new demand to the power grid, protecting existing customers.
3. A change of the optional clean energy choice rider; it now allows large load customers – including companies like Google and Meta with climate goals – to help shape Evergy’s integrated resource plan to invest in new renewable energy to strengthen the grid and/or replace existing assets, like coal- or gas-burning power plants. 

Statement from Billy Davies, Missouri Chapter Organizer for the Sierra Club in Kansas City: 

"Missourians are rightly concerned about the impacts of new data centers on their electric bills and communities, and they deserve protections. How will customers be protected after Evergy spends billions of dollars of our money on new gas-burning power plants if the AI bubble bursts, the utility overbuilds power plants due to AI speculation, or AI data centers become significantly more efficient? This large load tariff is a step in the right direction to protect Missouri ratepayers from the negative impact of data centers on our monthly utility bills, and ensures that speculators aren't driving the utility toward rash decisions. We joined Evergy and tech companies in supporting this tariff because it both protects existing customers, and provides an avenue for these tech companies to actually invest in the clean energy they claim they want to power data centers."

Statement from Sarah Rubenstein, Staff Attorney with Great Rivers Environmental Law Center: 

“Without clear protections, families and small businesses would be left footing the bill for the massive energy appetites of data centers. This PSC’s order ensures that large energy users share responsibility for the infrastructure they require while also creating new opportunities to move the grid toward clean, renewable energy.”