Sierra Club report calls out Kansas utility Evergy for failing to meet climate goals 

Evergy received 9 out of 100 points in a Sierra Club annual report ranking companies nationwide for their focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The low score was based in part on Evergy's decision to delay retirement of its coal power plant in Lawrence. (Jill Hummels/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Big utility companies nationwide lost ground this year in their plans to meet minimum climate targets, and Kansas’ Evergy received an F for a “multi-year backslide” from renewable investments, a Sierra Club report said. 

Evergy received 9 points out of 100 this year, dropping from 12 last year. The company earned a spotlight because of its move toward delaying the closure of a coal-burning plant and plans to build new gas-burning plants, the Dirty Truth about Utility Climate Pledges report said.  

The report grades 75 utilities across the country on plans to retire coal plants by 2030, not build new gas plants through 2035 and transition to clean energy through 2035, a press release said. 

“I think this is the worst year since we started doing the report five years ago,” said Ty Gorman, a Kansas organizing strategist for the Sierra Club. “The average score was 15. The purpose of the report was to inspire utilities to move us forward towards a livable future. We didn’t expect to see it go backwards.”

Gorman said Evergy’s decisions about natural gas plants and delaying closure of coal plants is part of a national trend. The stress of data centers and other large-load users on utility grids is being used as an “excuse” to move quickly, he said. 

Planning for a clean energy transition requires that utilities shift to running everything off of clean electricity, he said.

“There’s a good reason to increase load, but that’s at a steady pace that brings a lot of other benefits to the economy, to jobs, to ratepayers,” he said.

Data centers, though, offer a different kind of economic risk than other electric load growth types, Gorman said. The Kansas Sierra Club was part of the work at the Kansas Corporation Commission recently to determine how utilities like Evergy should make sure costs associated with new customers, like data centers, aren’t borne by other customers, he said.

“Evergy is courting data centers to come to the territory, and even with the changes, some of those costs shift to customers,” Gorman said. “I’d say that Evergy customers need to hold these large loads, these data centers, accountable to keep our bills low and lower our pollution by demanding that they use renewable energy.”

Gina Penzig, Evergy spokeswoman, said the company is delaying its expectations of a 70% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030.

“The reasons for this include growing demand growth because of the record economic growth in our service area and the need for new dispatchable generation, which is generation that can be turned on and off when our customers need it,” Penzig said. “The only sources of that would be natural gas, coal and potentially nuclear.”

Evergy announced last week that it is partnering with TerraPower to explore the possibility of building a nuclear power plant in Kansas, using advanced technology designed by TerraPower.

Penzig said Sierra Club has a narrow mission of retiring all fossil-fuel generation as soon as possible.

“At Evergy, we have to first ensure that it’s reliable, so it’s there when our customers need it. And what is the least cost combination of resources that we can use to get there,” she said. “If you look at our long-term plan, it has a considerable amount of renewables also being added to serve customers. The only reason we can do that is by combining it with traditional energy sources so that we can ensure we have reliable service.”

Penzig said the new generation of natural gas plants has advanced technology that makes them more efficient and cleaner than older plants.

Gorman said focusing on decreasing fossil fuel use is critical because of the effects of the climate crisis.

“We see them all across the country, the extreme weather, extreme heat, extreme cold,” he said. “They’re causing utility infrastructure to fall apart, especially gas and fossil fuel infrastructure. In response, these utilities in order to increase their profits are doubling down on that same gas and coal infrastructure that’s the most expensive.”

Gorman said it’s clear the utilities are going in the wrong direction. 

“(Evergy CEO) David Campbell is taking Evergy backwards, trying to increase fossil fuel product pollution and shareholder profits by spending as much as they can on expensive fossil fuel infrastructure, as much as the Kansas Corporation Commission will allow them to,” he said. That’s making our climate crisis worse. It’s making our bills higher, and it’s making our health worse.”