Evergy to close coal plant near Lawrence as part of its plan to cut carbon emissions

Evergy, the investor-owned electric company that serves most of the Kansas City region, plans to close two coal-fired plants within the next nine years, marking continued steps toward reducing its use of fossil fuels to generate power.

Evergy on Friday filed an integrated resource plan — required by regulators every three years to forecast how the utility will meet demands for electricity — that has the utility reducing its carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2045.

Evergy’s plan shows the utility will still be burning fossil fuels in 2040, although at a lower rate than it is currently.

Visible steps toward reducing emissions include shutting down the Lawrence Energy Center, a coal-fired plant near Lawrence, by the end of 2023. The Lawrence plant is Evergy’s oldest, with its remaining units dating back to 1960.

Evergy is also accelerating the retirement of Unit 3 of the Jeffrey Energy Center near St. Marys, Kansas — originally expected to shut down in 2039, it now is set to close in 2030.

Together, closing the Lawrence and Jeffrey plants means Evergy loses 1,153 megawatts of fossil fuel generation, which it plans to replace with 3,200 megawatts of wind and solar power by 2030.

Friday’s filing indicates that Evergy, like other major utility companies, increasingly favors the economics of renewable energy while fossil fuels — coal, in particular — are seen as a thing of the past.

Evergy’s announcement also signals that, despite the politics around fossil fuels and their impact on the environment, private business and industry continue to gravitate toward renewable energy sources.

“The announcement of significant growth in renewable energy will bring economic benefits to our region through more cost-competitive generation and investment in rural communities,” said Evergy president and chief executive David Campbell in a statement. “We’re hearing more often from current and prospective commercial and industrial customers about their desire to move to more sustainable operations. This plan helps us help them achieve their carbon goals, as well as advancing Evergy’s emissions targets.”

Evergy’s integrated resource plan does not detail the costs of its transformation toward renewable sources, and what that may mean to electric bills paid by residential and commercial customers.

Evergy currently generates about 67% of its electricity from fossil fuels — coal, natural gas and oil — down from about 90% in 2010. Wind energy accounts for 25% of Evergy’s generation while solar power’s presence is negligible. Evergy owns a nuclear plant near Burlington, Kansas, which accounts for less than 10% of its power generation.

By 2040, Evergy’s expectation is wind and solar power will make up nearly half of its electric generation, while coal will shrink to 7% and natural gas and oil will drop to 21%.

The Sierra Club, an environmental watchdog nonprofit, applauded Evergy’s move toward renewables but criticized the utility for its plans to continue burning coal beyond 2040 at its Hawthorn and Iatan 2 plants.

““While the new investments in renewable energy are important, it’s unfortunate that Evergy is proposing to continue operating 80 percent of its coal fleet beyond 2030, a decision that is wildly inconsistent with a low-cost grid and necessary action to achieve climate progress,” said Andy Knott, deputy regional director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, in a statement. “The continued operation of Evergy’s Kansas coal plants is actually going to cost customers in both states more, not less, according to publicly available data reviewed by Sierra Club.”

As Evergy transitions more to wind and solar power, the fossil fuel plants that had been the utility’s primary source for generation will function more like backups for periods of peak customer demand, like hot summer days and freezing winter nights.

Evergy serves 1.6 million customers in eastern Kansas and western Missouri and is the result of the merger between Kansas City Power & Light and Westar Energy in 2018. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.