Evergy expects its retail sales will grow 7% to 8% a year through 2030, driven by data center additions, up from its previous 6% growth forecast, company officials said Thursday during a quarterly earnings conference call.
Evergy recently signed a new electric service agreement with an unnamed customer, which brings its total demand from large load ESAs to 2.5 GW, up from the 1.9 GW it disclosed three months ago, said David Campbell, Evergy chairman, president and CEO. The Kansas City, Missouri-based utility company expects to sign at least one more ESA with a large load customer this year, he said.
Evergy has an additional 450 MW under contract with large customers such as Panasonic’s electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant, Campbell noted.
Evergy is in talks to expand its existing ESAs by a total of up to 1.5 GW, Campbell said. It is also in “advanced discussions” to add 1.5 GW to 3 GW of large-load customers after 2030, he said.
“These customers have acquired land or land rights, signed letters of agreement, and we are actively reviewing transmission and generation capacity solutions,” Campbell said.
Evergy owns four utilities with about 1.7 million customers in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. Their retail sales in the first quarter were essentially flat at 10.4 million MWh. However, when removing the effects of a mild winter, weather-normalized sales jumped 4.7%, said Bryan Buckler, Evergy chief financial officer.
Weather-normalized residential demand grew 3.3%, reflecting customer growth as people move into Evergy’s Kansas and Missouri service areas, Buckler said. Commercial demand grew 3.8%, driven mainly by the initial ramp-up of data centers. Industrial demand grew 10.1%, mainly due to Panasonic's ramp-up and higher usage from a large customer that had an unplanned outage a year ago, he said.
“We anticipate robust growth in the commercial and industrial classes throughout 2026, given the continued ramps of large customers, including the data center project that energized in March,” Buckler said.
Adding generation to serve the new customers adds “modest upside” to Evergy’s $21.6 billion capital investment plan, Buckler said. It also increases Evergy’s expected annual rate base growth to about 12%, up from its previous 11.5% estimate, he said.
Reflecting changes to their outlooks, Evergy Metro, which serves the Kansas City metropolitan area, and Evergy Missouri West filed updates on Thursday to their integrated resource plans. The plans call for adding 4.7 GW in gas-fired generation by 2044, up from 3.7 GW that they outlined in their plans a year ago.
In addition, the two utilities killed their plans to add 2.4 GW of wind and slashed their planned solar additions to 465 MW from 2,415 MW. The change reflects reduced production tax credit eligibility under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, roughly 30% higher renewable development costs, and local siting and permitting challenges, the utilities said in their filings with the Missouri Public Service Commission.
The resource plans also include delaying power plant retirements.
On the rate case front, Evergy Metro in February asked the Missouri PSC for a $140 million rate hike that includes a 10.5% return on equity with a capital structure composed of 52% equity, Evergy said in a quarterly report it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It expects new rates will take effect in January.
In the first quarter, Evergy’s income jumped 21%, to $151.5 million, or 64 cents/share, from $125 million, or 54 cents/share, in this period a year ago. Revenue was flat in the quarter at $1.4 billion.
The increased income was in part due to a rate increase in Kansas that took effect in October, higher non-regulated energy marketing revenue and lower income tax expense, partially offset by higher depreciation, interest and operating and maintenance expense, Evergy said in its SEC filing.
