Evergy customers in the Kansas Central division, including all in the KVOE listening area, will see their monthly bills increase as a result of the brutal cold conditions of February 2021.
The Kansas Corporation Commission has approved an agreement which lets Evergy recover its extraordinary costs from part of its territory — Kansas Central — while crediting its Kansas Metro customers for selling excess power back to the Southwest Power Pool.
Kansas Metro customers in and near Kansas City will see their monthly bills decrease $6.60 through a credit for a year. Evergy Central customers will see their bills increase almost $3 a month for a two-year period beginning in April 2023.
The board’s decision was opposed by Kansas Industrial Consumers, the Natural Gas Transportation Customer Coalition and Coffey Resources Refining and Marketing, who said the agreement unjustly shifted costs from residential to industrial customers. The KCC dismissed those arguments, saying some customers made efforts to conserve energy during the abnormally cold stretch in February 2021 and other customers did not. The KCC says there was no evidence suggesting any reallocation of a class-wide basis would reward only those who cut back on energy.
