Kansas puts electricity mega-users in their own lane

Power to the People, John Lennon

Table of Contents

• What’s a Large Load, anyway?

• How the plan works (plain English)

• Why this helps regular Kansans

• Big users should carry their own weight

• What this plan does not do

What’s a Large Load, anyway?

Kansas is suddenly on the map for power-hungry projects, such as the new battery manufacturing plant in De Soto or proposed data center campuses along K-10. After a summer of high-stakes utility cases, Evergy and more than a dozen intervenors—from CURB to Google to the Data Center Coalition—filed a unanimous settlement creating a dedicated tariff for very large loads. The Kansas Corporation Commission will hear it on October 8 (see the unanimous settlement, filed Aug. 18, 2025).

Evergy and a broad set of parties (consumer advocates, environmental groups, tech companies, and four Johnson County school districts) have negotiated a “Large Load Power Service¹ ” plan that would supply these projects via their own rate lane with long contracts, large security deposits, and a pay-your-own-way rule for new grid gear. Supporters say that’s how you keep households from footing the bill for someone else’s expansion; skeptics worry big players will still shift costs in the fine print. Signers to the agreement include school districts Blue Valley (USD 229), Olathe (USD 233), De Soto (USD 232), and Shawnee Mission (USD 512)—a strong signal that schools want insulation from surprise costs:

Additionally, Kansas regulators approved in July Evergy’s plan to add two natural-gas plants and a solar project² , with a near-term impact of around an ~8.6% increase for Evergy Kansas Central customers. That’s the current baseline. The new tariff aims to keep the next wave of growth from washing onto everyone else’s bills.

Meanwhile, De Soto advanced a multi-phase data center campus in August; it’s an obvious early candidate for this special rate if the project’s electricity demands cross a threshold.

How the plan works (plain English)

If a customer is truly massive (75+ megawatts of monthly peak demand), they don’t share rates with households, schools, or small businesses. They move into a separate “energy lane” (LLPS) with three big ideas baked in:

1. You trigger it, you pay it. If the project needs new substations or transmission extensions, the project covers those costs up front.

2. No ghosting. Long contracts keep a mega-user from bailing and leaving others with stranded costs: mega-customers would sign minimum 17-year agreements.

3. Pay even when you’re not “full.” These mega-sites would be obligated to pay a minimum of 80% of the contracted capacity, regardless of whether or not the facility is ready to use it. That means slow ramp-ups or construction delays don’t translate into higher rates for everyone else. (These mega-customers would also post collateral equal to two years’ worth of minimum bills.)

There’s also common-sense “bridge capacity” rule: if Evergy has to buy interim capacity while permanent resources catch up, the big user pays an extra charge for that.

By the numbers

Why this helps regular Kansans

When it comes to electricity, most people only focus on their monthly bill. The proposed tariff’s core purpose is to keep very large, new demand (e.g. datacenters) from leaking into everyone else’s rates. Put differently: if a project needs a big new substation (or a temporary power purchase while the grid catches up), the project pays directly instead of passing costs through to a family in Olathe or the coffee shop in Lenexa. That’s why you see public-sector names on the settlement; they’re signaling, “Don’t back-bill our classrooms for someone else’s data center.”

Kansas isn’t out on a limb here; Ohio recently upheld a data-center-specific framework designed to protect other customers. And national energy researchers have been nudging utilities toward load-specific rate designs for months.

If you live, work, or commute along K-10, this isn’t theoretical. De Soto’s data-center campus, next to the Panasonic site, would likely be an early user of the tariff. Under the proposed LLPS rule, those projects would pay for their own substation or line extensions and carry financial risk for delays (instead of pushing that uncertainty onto the rest of Johnson County). For cities, that means fewer budget surprises tied to outside growth. For residents, it means fewer reasons for across-the-board hikes when a mega-project shows up.

Big users should carry their own weight

Kansas is right to separate hyperscalers from everyone else. Long commitments, meaningful minimums, and up-front collateral are responsible guardrails, not anti-growth. The public conversation around AI and data centers can sound apocalyptic (“They’ll eat the grid,” “Our lights will flicker,” “My bill will double”), but that’s not the Kansas situation. A better perspective: We’re going to grow; who carries the risk of that growth? This plan points the risk toward the businesses causing it. That’s fair. And if a project is solid, it should have no trouble signing a long-term deal and posting collateral.

Data centers do soak up serious power, and the promises made in this agreement will have to survive the next rate change proposal. But taken together, these guardrails are more likely to lower risks than create them…especially coming right after the summer decision to build new power plants.

What this plan does not do

• It doesn’t stop data centers from coming.

• It doesn’t guarantee zero impact on rates.

• It doesn’t solve every grid headache; siting battles over substations and lines will still land at planning commissions and council meetings.

1  A Large Load Power Service (LLPS) is an electricity client whose energry needs are so great that they typically need dedicated infrastructure, such as substations and transmission lines.

2  Yes, new solar projects are still (somehow) being approved. Kansas Sky is the one recently approved, and is designed to generate 159MW of power.