Evergy Missouri Metro and Evergy Missouri West Rate Case 2022
Synapse provided expert witness support to the Sierra Club in the rate case for Evergy Missouri Metro and Evergy Missouri West. Our testimony and analysis focused on evaluating the economics of Evergy’s existing coal-fired power plants at Hawthorn Generating Station, Iatan Generating Station, Jeffrey Energy Center, and La Cygne Generating Station. We quantified the cost of continuing to operate the aging power plants relative to purchasing energy and capacity from the market or building alternative resources.
We found that the company has incurred negative net revenues at most of its power plants during four of the last five years and that its plants, especially Jeffrey Units 1-3, and La Cygne Units 1&2, are projected to continue to be economic over the next decade. We also found that the Company had not met its burden of proof to demonstrate that continued investment in its coal fleet is prudent and the least-cost option.
We recommended that the Commission require that Evergy conduct a full retirement study using optimized capacity expansion modeling to identify optional retirement dates and replacement resources for each unit. We also recommended that the Commission disallow from inclusion in rates capital costs and O&M expenses for its most uneconomic units on the basis that the company has not demonstrated the prudence of continuing to operate the plants relative to retirement and replacement with alternatives.