A substantial proportion of Kansas’ existing coal fleet will likely stay online longer than planned thanks in part to data center load growth in the state.
The utility Evergy is asking the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Missouri Public Service Commission for permission to delay the retirement or conversion of around 2.8 gigawatts of coal plants across the states by at least five years. Additionally, Evergy plans to build 5 GW of new generation, including 3.9 GW of natural gas.
Overhauling its capacity portfolio is part of the utility’s plans to serve a multi-gigawatt pipeline of large loads.
The pathways and timelines for connecting those loads“has become more certain” as data centers have started signing deals under the utility’s newly-approved large load tariffs, Every wrote in its latest regulatory filings. More than 2 GW of data centers have signed deals under those tariffs so far, the company said in its second quarter earnings call last week. (It also cited 500 MW of non-data center load growth.)
Evergy isn’t alone in reconsidering coal’s role in its capacity mix amid new data center load. By some estimates, surging AI load growth has already led to the delayed retirement of more than a dozen coal plants, slowing a decades-long shift away from coal in the U.S. power sector. Southern Company earlier this year announced plans to delay the retirement of generators in Georgia and Mississippi, also citing data center load growth.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. energy sector’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by 2% last year, thanks in large part to higher electricity demand, and a larger share of electricity generated from coal. The fossil fuel is undercutting the clean energy goals of many of the largest technology companies, which are giving up some control over their electricity supply and generation mix in exchange for faster grid connections.
In the Midwest, one of the primary beneficiaries of Evergy’s larger portfolio is Google, which has ambitious clean energy goals including operating its entire business — including data centers — with 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. That said, the company’s emissions have risen dramatically in recent years, driven by the energy use of its data centers.
Evergy’s second-quarter report shows that Google’s massive Kansas City data center — 710 MW and in the works since 2024 — is one of five that have signed energy service agreements under Evergy’s large load tariff. That data center is Evergy’s largest to date, and according to the utility’s 2026 IRP update, is far larger than others in the pipeline.
In response to questions from Latitude Media, Google pointed to its participation in the White House’s ratepayer protection pledge, and its 2024 execution of a 400 MW power purchase agreement with a Missouri solar farm. Google is leveraging that PPA via a capacity purchase and sale agreement with Evergy, selling accredited capacity from the solar farm to the utility and “in effect, bringing clean capacity online to help support a portion of our load requirements and helping to lower the overall carbon intensity of Evergy’s system,” Google said.
Evergy has also inked deals with Meta, Beale Infrastructure, and Digital Realty, with projects spread across Missouri and Kansas.
Tariff-related certainty
The cost of those extensions will, in theory, be covered in part by the companies that have inked deals with Evergy under its large load tariffs, which require data centers to “pay a premium rate that covers their fair share of existing and new system costs.” However, as Latitude Intelligence analyst Nick Zenkin pointed out, whether those rates will cover the total cost of running aging coal plants won’t be known for several years.
Evergy’s “large load power service” tariffs were approved in Kansas in November 2025 and in Missouri this February. In both states, the tariff has a 75-megawatt threshold, requires customers to pay 80% of their contracted demand as a minimum monthly bill, and imposes long-term contract commitments. Missouri requires a 15-year minimum term, and Kansas has a 12-year minimum.
Unlike in Oregon, where state law requires the power demands of new data centers to be met by clean energy, neither of Evergy’s tariffs contains such requirements.
The tariffs do allow customers to bring their own generation, and to credit that power against their own load — essentially what Google is doing with its solar PPA, Zenkin explained. But Google won’t be credited for the full 400 MW of the solar plant: the credit is based on how SPP, the regional grid operator, accredits the resource, not a project’s nameplate capacity. That figure is different depending on the season, Zenkin added. “A solar farm counts for about three-quarters its size in the summer and about a quarter of it in the winter,” he explained. “A gas turbine holds its value in both seasons. So the same credit can have very different economics.”
Reassessing the risk of old coal
Changes to Evergy’s IRP are necessary to maintain grid reliability in the face of growing AI load, the utility told regulators this summer, as well as increased building costs, long lead times for development, and the early-phase out of certain federal tax credits: “Evergy has few options for near-term wind or solar additions, particularly options that would be eligible for [production tax credits],” the filing said.
Those changes to federal policy have slowed Evergy’s “pace of decarbonization, leading the utility to reassess “coal plant retirement risks.” Evergy’s coal fleet is old — ranging from mid-40s up to 71 years — and that’s impacting its ability to meet resource adequacy requirements, the utility acknowledged. But the “slowing of decarbonization and environmental restrictions” combined with rapid load growth has fundamentally changed the calculus of operating those plants.
Now, the utility plans to push the retirement of two coal units back five years, while three more units — La Cygne 2, Iatan 1 and Jeffrey 1 — drop off the 20-year planning schedule entirely. The plan also delays the Lake Road gas units by seven years, and postpones the conversion of Jeffrey 2 from coal to gas.
