TOPEKA — Data centers and large manufacturing facilities can pull hundreds of megawatts of electricity from the utility grid. A case in front of Kansas utility regulators has created a new way to ensure costs created by those businesses are fairly distributed among consumers and investors.
On Oct. 8, the Kansas Corporation Commission will consider a unanimous settlement agreement created after multiple consumer, nonprofit and private interest parties worked to reach agreement on a large load service rate plan and utility tariff.
A utility tariff sets up a rate structure and terms and conditions of utility services.
THE UNANIMOUS agreement designs a rate structure for large-load customers, defined in the agreement as those that reach a peak load of 75 megawatts monthly.
To put that in perspective, Topeka and Lawrence together probably use about 75 megawatts of electricity per month, said Chuck Caisley, Evergy executive vice president of public affairs.
Parties involved in the settlement negotiations included KCC staff, Evergy, the Data Center Coalition, the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board, school districts, Google LLC, the Sierra Club, multiple industrial businesses and the National Resources Defense Council.
“It’s really going to be, I think, a model for the rest of the United States when it’s all said and done,” Caisley said. “It’s unprecedented when you go into a regulatory proceeding like this on such a complicated issue for all the parties to ultimately walk out and say, ‘This would be fair for everybody.’”
JOSEPH ASTRAB, consumer counsel at the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board, was part of the negotiations on behalf of small businesses and residential consumers.
“There’s definitely a lot of compromise here,” Astrab said. “This is a unique document. Normally, we file some initial testimony, respond to the application, kind of setting off positions and preferences. But in this docket, we went straight into technical discussions and planning and more of a collaborative approach with utilities, data center customers and other stakeholders in Kansas, to figure out what’s a good tariff.”
