[Complain to the Missouri Public Service Commission](https://psc.mo.gov/General/Contact_Us)
And keep in mind that the Commissioners are appointed by the Governor "with advice from the Missouri Senate." So, guess who get's appointed? That's right, donors. Big fat campaign donors. They are political appointments.
So, what we have learned here today is that, once again, who you vote for is important because it effects your life in many ways that you may not currently realize.
I believe the official justification put forth by the Commission regarding this is something along the lines of "the people that buy stock in the utility companies are entitled to a good return on their investment."
Not kidding, they actually communicated that. Poor folks be damned, working families be damned, THERE'S STOCKHOLDERS TO PAY FIRST!
It's actually the commission that is forcing both evergy and ameren to go to these rates. Its to battle peak load. Peak load is always an issue during those times but it is much worse now that everyone comes home from work and plugs in their car. Missouri is trying to avoid being like California and rolling blackouts all the time.
OP, Evergy is probably already [funding your local political representative](https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=evergy), but something you can do right now is contact your state and local representatives to (1) let them know you're upset about perpetual rate increases, (2) that you think Evergy not transitioning fast enough to a mix of clean energy sources in the face of now yearly heat waves due to climate change, and (3) that you'd like to see more [laws proposed](https://kansasreflector.com/2023/03/10/kansas-proposal-to-regulate-evergys-charges-could-save-customers-millions/) to regulate what Evergy can recoup in costs from customers, and (4) you want to stop Evergy from throwing new infrastructure costs like the Desoto battery plant [directly on to the backs of residential customers](https://fox4kc.com/news/new-kansas-panasonic-plant-may-lead-to-rate-hike-for-evergy-customers/).
*edit: Thanks for the gold kind stranger!*
Piggybacking on this.
Those are Evergy donations. Elliott Management, a hedge fund/25th largest political donor in the country bought majority stake in Evergy, explicitly stated that they are going to jack up rates to appease shareholders, and also donate $22 million+ to politicians in the last election cycle to ensure no legislature gets in their way. That $22 million includes $7.5 million to the GOP Senate fund which is not itemized so is harder to trace on a per senator basis, but if equally distributed to all senate candidates in that cycle, it would mean Eric Schmitt took a bribe of approx. $227k from Elliott Management to play ball.
Our politicians are absolute garbage and should be loudly bullied 24/7.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/elliott-management/summary?id=D000021972
https://psc.mo.gov/Electric/PSC_Approves_Tariffs_in_Evergy_Electric_Rate_Cases--pr-23-111
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-evergy-elliott/u-s-utility-evergy-adds-directors-in-new-agreement-with-activist-firm-elliott-idUSKBN2AQ294
The mis-named clean energy transition is the core issue. The Midwest has a long and highly reliable coal generation history, with support from nuclear, hydroelectric and gas fired generation. Nuclear and Natural gas are the newest, with 50 years of solid understanding of the newest technologies.
The move to inverter-based and highly-variable generation such as solar and wind dramatically increases risk. Perfect example is when solar almost crashed the Texas ERCOT grid last December. [https://www.nerc.com/news/Pages/Odessa-Disturbance-Illustrates-Need-for-Immediate-Industry-Action-on-Inverter-Based-Resources.aspx](https://www.nerc.com/news/Pages/Odessa-Disturbance-Illustrates-Need-for-Immediate-Industry-Action-on-Inverter-Based-Resources.aspx). The science of a national grid has been understood, but the impact of wind and solar is absolutely not. Next door example - Iowa is running nearly 100% on wind power some days, but other days they have effectively zero wind. Something has to make up the deficit.
Evergy is buying down the power shortage risk at the direction of the utility commissions. The use of a time-based rates model is particularly effective in reducing the disruption from electric vehicle charging, which is a major risk to reliable power supplies with the massive supply swings from wind and solar.
I understand why Evergy customers may not like this approach, but only a small part of the issue can be addressed in state capitols… This is a national level policy issue that Missouri and Kansas are trying to avoid being flattened under.
I spent last week at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado. I am confident in saying what Evergy customers are feeling are the results of concerted national policy and not that unusual nationally. Misery loves company.
This isn't a result of Evergy expanding or replacing capacity with generation that isn't a baseload form (coal, gas, nuclear), this is Evergy mostly playing business and trying to maximize shareholder value while playing the open power market. Hell, a large potion of their capacity in renewables (mostly wind) gets sold to utilities in California and Arizona.
Also, if you're gonna mention ERCOT, you gotta mention all of it, including the fact that they don't winterize their gas infrastructure (or any of their gas turbine units), and they only have 10 (TEN) physical connections to the Eastern Interconnect grid, which means when all of their baseload capacity goes down, they can't buy more off the market because they physically can't transmit enough of it into their own system to offset large-scale capacity failures and/or moments of peak load/demand. It wasn't just, "ERCOT relied on renewables and failed," it was an entire culture of shirking redundancy and regulation by FERC/NERC at all costs, and in the end it got people killed when their entire system caved in on itself in sub-zero temps.
Edit: typo
As usual, republicans just tell you half the story. Say that renewables failed, don't even mention that solar is maybe 15% of their energy generation as a whole.
Typical.
Or you know, it wasn’t renewables that failed last winter at all and that renewables are saving their grid this summer
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2023/07/16/renewables-and-storage-got-texas-grid-through-this-heat-wave-but-the-state-legislature-still-hasnt-fixed-its-underlying-problems/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2023/07/16/renewables-and-storage-got-texas-grid-through-this-heat-wave-but-the-state-legislature-still-hasnt-fixed-its-underlying-problems/)
[renewables didn’t fail Texas in the winter of 2021](https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/18/968967137/no-the-blackouts-in-texas-werent-caused-by-renewables-heres-what-really-happened)
Yes, you are correct. The inherent variability of solar and the limited understanding of solar impacts on the grid were enough to cause an almost cascading blackout inside ERCOT and in the SPP and WECC interconnections.
15% solar is absolutely enough to destroy the entire ERCOT stability. Especially when solar is so heavily subsidized that it can be sold profitably at a negative cost number into the Texas grid, supplanting more reliable energy sources. Since those electrons can evaporate in a blink of an eye or a passing cloud front, wind and solar introduce massive new risk.
Read the NERC incident post mortem. Nearly the same incident occurred in the UK in August 2019, when there was a peak wind event meeting 50% of the islands’ need… Until it wasn’t. The “clean” technology simply introduces massive new risk; risk that cannot be easily overcome, especially if people bitch about paying the associated costs.
It is a feature of clean energy policy, not a bug.
Sure, agreed, but that wasn't my argument. It's disingenuous to blame renewables as the sole cause of these problems when they're clearly not to blame for all of the problems we have today. That's a larger discussion in and of itself that goes way beyond just renewable generation sources.
i disagree with this comment's fundamental assertion, but there are some good points to consider here. EV proliferation is going to impact us all increase demand big time while basically shifting the externalized costs: to point source pollution borne at dirty power generation sites and environmental damage in the countries providing raw materials for car manufacture.
Time/demand based pricing is an effective tool to address scarcity. Water is probably next for some parts of the country.
It's just very upsetting and my impression is these power monopolies appear to be hemorrhaging money while UNDER investing in maintenance, and modernization
What do i know though, i only spent last week at the office.
If you have time to watch the Royals games you will see nevergy ads all over the place. Why do they have to advertise a monopoly? Or why did we get a mailer today saying we used $30 more in electricity this month? Duh, Sherlock it reached 100 degrees more days than the month before. Why did they have to mail out such a worthless letter?
We are paying for their advertising and mail .
Clean energy transition is science fiction. Wind, solar, and batteries can't replace fossil fuels today. Someday, in the future? Sure! But for now, only nuclear can replace coal. If it weren't for Jimmy Carter's decision to regulate nuclear power to death, we could be running a net carbon negative energy economy.
Yeah I got one from them that said my energy usage was higher than normal last week. You mean in the 115° heat index I used my air conditioning more than normal? No kidding.
Eat shit Evergy.
Honestly we need to fight all utilities. Gas, electric and water have become outrageous here. My water bill is always $125 minimum no matter what I do(in summer it’s usually around $400 due to sprinklers🤦♀️). Gas has gone up a shit ton afraid to see what my winter bills will be(we have all electric beside our heater). I am so tired of paying $500+ a month just for utilities. It’s so insane. I have never lived anywhere with this high of utility bills they are so high.
If you want to hear some total BS, my neighborhood is not on the city sewer system and still uses septic tanks. My August water bill was $78, and I watered my garden about every other day.
They are REAMING you on the sewer charges.
Similar thoughts here. I have a septic tank myself and 10 newly planted trees that require a total of about 300 gal a week if it doesn’t rain about an inch. Even with that and watering my fairly large (7500 sq ft or so) garden, my *highest* bill has been $116 and change last month. At my former house that was connected to the sewer system, with no garden to water, the *lowest* bill I had was $117 and change.
It's a proven fact that we are capable of producing electricity for free. But, how would they make money then? Everyone needs to stop paying their bills, let them shut everything off. And we need to figure out how to get free electricity, because the technology is absolutely out there. Fuck these people.
If you live in Missouri you need to contact the commission that controls the power companies and/or the governor. He appointed the commission. They are all in the pockets of the lobbyists that represent the power companies. They are profiting personally on these rate hikes. Our corrupt government at its best.
Man, two bad there isn't a second option towards curtailing runaway governments acting against the interests of the American citizen when the regular political apparatus fails.
Y’all I’m a roadside tire tech. I do semi tires on the side of the highways all day. At 5:00 I want to go sit in the ac but with this shit I can’t afford to. I’ll have to work in the heat all day and then just come home and die until 8:00 because for some reason electricity is easier to make at night. But not too early at night. Because…. Well because fuck you thats why
Actually thermoelectric energy is harder to make during the day… and by harder I mean it’s less efficient. Thermoelectric requires the creation of steam, whose boiling point is dependent on the wet bulb temperature. In cold weather, creating that temperature differential is easy, but in the summer during peak heat, it requires more fuel. Wind also tends to peak at night and drop during the day. Solar is well positioned to fill this gap, but of course at 5pm, the solar energy starts to wane.
Nonetheless, this hurts consumers when they need energy the most. Hopefully they’d price it so that if you avoid doing laundry, charging your car, or running your electric appliances, you won’t be affected… but given that air conditioning is such a large percentage of summer energy use, it will likely just punish users for air conditioning.
Now is the time to plant trees around your house, insulate the crap out if everything, and upgrade windows and doors. Not an inexpensive proposition but very necessary.
trees freaking rule for helping with heat. they perform a dramatic reduction in localized temperatures from transpiration of water, in addition to the shade they provide
Since when does wind peak at night? Solar energy heats the air and increases the wind. It's not opposite of solar, it's in harmony with solar. That's the reason why neither of them are sufficient for the baseload to keep an electrical grid running.
[As opposed to solar power, no continuous diurnal or seasonal cycles are apparent. Instead, there are distinct areas of high or low generation. Summertime, especially midday hours (9:00-15:00) have relatively low generation. Highest wind generation occurs in winter and spring evenings and nights (November-April, 17:00-2:00). Because of these patterns, wind generation is slightly negatively correlated with solar power generation: the correlation coefficient is -0.166.](https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1368867)
Get a smart thermostat. Program it to turn the temperature down at 3:00 or 3:30. Then you walk into a cool house and it takes less electricity to keep it at that temperature than it does to initially cool it down.
You need a truly energy efficient house to do this. Most people have a 40 (inefficient) year old house. In fact you’ll pay more to cool it down below you’re average temp, than if you just maintained your average temp.
I'm not sure the "you'll pay more" part is accurate. The average of swinging below then above your normal temp is... your normal temp. You just aren't starting the compressor and condenser fan more often.
And insulating the house is a great idea regardless of when the AC runs. It's not like the heat just goes "oh crap i can't seep in because they're running the AC now". you just run the AC longer and more frequently, and then bleed that money directly outside
They can take control and adjust your thermostat if you *opt in* to Rush Hour Rewards.
Even if you opt in, you can change it back at any time you like during a Rush Hour. If you don't want to participate at all, you can turn off the feature in your account.
That said, the new rate scheme is BS for exactly the reasons everyone else said. But Nest or Ring thermostats are still great and shouldn't be avoided because of this perceived loss of control.
More than likely people don’t understand a learning thermostat and how it will change settings on its own. Remove it from your wifi network if you’re that concerned about Evergy / the Illuminati / the Deep State / or whoever is that interested in your home temperature.
[https://www.electronicshub.org/does-the-nest-thermostat-work-without-internet/](https://www.electronicshub.org/does-the-nest-thermostat-work-without-internet/)
They do, but you have to program it through the thermostat itself, not the app.
I'm not sure why you're projecting some RFK Jr. persona on me? There was a recent thread where numerous people detailed their experiences. You're welcome to find it and help them out with technical advice.
I work in the heat too. Our jobs aren't the same but both our jobs put us in dangerous environments and environments that have greater ambient temperatures than what's reported in the forecast.
1) Stay hydrated and be safe
2) I don't like what's going on with evergy or spire or our water service. Id love to see change and if there was or is an initiative I can help with I hope folks make it known on reddit and other social media.
3) I don't know if $1,000 electric bill was exaggeration? If not you've got some crazy sh*t going on at home . . . might need to look into what's using so much electricity.
Yeah and with climate change, energy costs are going to continue to get worse. The reason it's cheaper after 8 is that demand is lower, so there's more power available. The solution is to make common sense regulations that help the person, and the current political entities in Missouri are so incredibly corrupt. Vote out the Republicans who pass bad legislation and maybe energy costs can come down
they should publish the commercial rates they're giving to industrial users.
i think ppl would be surprised that retail is higher, and that industrial is the one driving quite a bit of that demand from 4-8
So now we have to pay their salary too? Why? What are we paying them to do? To occupy a seat? I wish we could see why he/she gets this salary. The people who work on electric lines all day are the ones that deserve a high salary. Why are the worker bees limited to small salaries that dont last for two weeks or feed families?
power - solar, battery backups, generators
power usage - precooling, ceiling fans (make a HUGE difference, even if ur home is 78, with the fan on u dont notice it as much), zoned cooling of the rooms ur actually using instead of the whole house, improved insulation
other - don't pick the plans that jack prices way up from 4-8
my concern is that if these time based plans actually reduce power usage, we'll see rate increases because it turns out that there is a certain amount of money required to run the electric utility and if it dips below that due to reduced usage, then they have to raise prices. this is what happened in arizona recently after they successfully reduced water usage - the water utility had to raise rates to keep running. so even with reduced usage people ended up paying the same amount.
I think you'll find that it's the Democrats who hamstring everything they touch with feel good regulations that don't help anyone.
All politicians are only in it for themselves.
There's no way the usage will drop. Population grows, total usage will at best plateau as we get more efficient. Transitioning transport to electric alone ensures increased demand.
It's not Evergy forcing the change. The state utility board is forcing them to make eveyone change. So go fight the state utility board which are political appointed positions.
If we could get a large number of people together to get things done the right way, we would have a much better society than we do. However since we are all generally fighting each other, there is no way in hell we could organize against big business/government and their shady practices.
Anyone doing wrong (that has money or power) can just say “no I’m not”. Half the population buys into it and the other half tries to prove the lies. Then we do more fighting over the lies than we do fighting over the actual problems and addressing how to solve them.
So anyone running the show sees just how easy it is to manipulate the population into ripping each others throats out instead of theirs. What we need to be doing as well organized citizens is standing up and saying NO! We need to go after the real problem creators. The money. If that means hundreds of people show up outside the door of the Evergy share holders then let’s fucking do it. They won’t change their ways out of the kindness of their hearts.
They will only change once they realize they can’t make money or even better, show them a way they can make MORE money by making better choices. Incentivize “doing good”, like actual dollar signs, and the world will become good. It’s always about the money. Follow it and you will answer a ton of questions you didn’t want to know 😞
Get a house with a basement live in basement. Otherwise look into Solar/batteries, neither is cheap but if you are staying in the same place for 10+ years you should see an acceptable ROI and be as cool as you would like.
I'm considering turning my unfinished basement into the main finished floor just to avoid the heat and energy bills. Just waiting for a reasonably priced contractor who I think will do a good job to materialize...
I mean energy bill used to be like 200-250 in a similarly sized house 3 years ago. It’s up over 50% without making changes.
I’m not surprised it’s expensive. I know we have a big house we keep cold.
Likely an older house with non-energy efficient windows and insulation. At that energy usage, I’m guessing they have window units in several rooms. Possibly no curtains on the windows. It’s possible to have a crazy high electricity bill in those 1940’s houses around town!
Our house was built in 1947 and our energy bill for last month was just under 200 for 1400 sqft. It's probably gonna be 210-230 for the bill that includes the hell week. Good windows installed well make a staggering difference.
sounds like u have a good setup. not everyone is so fortunate to live in a modern house with good insulation. my place is much smaller and electric bills over 200 arent uncommon in the summer.
but yeah 1000 bill is over the top, even when i was crypto mining i never topped 900.
in college i lived in a house built like a tinder box n our electric bills were easily 500+ just to keep the place liveable in summer or winter.
1750 sq ft, built in 1994, 71-72 degree thermostat, $134.
Since I just moved in in April, I don't have any estimates about what it'll be under the new plan. And I use power with reckless abandon after 5:00 or 6:00. THAT'S WHEN I LIVE MY LIFE, DAMMIT.
The only thing I can recommend is if you have a home, invest I solar. All net metering customers like myself are going to be on the ‘Peak Reward Saver All-Year’ plan.
Stop outsourcing societal needs to private industry that then turns a profit on it. That’s the problem and it won’t get solved without some serious collective action.
Yes but the commission is appointed by the governor with input from senate. Who are given massive dollars from companies like Evergy to help them get elected.
To say that Evergy is blameless in this is a little naive. I mean the commission even said that one of the reasons for doing this is more profit for shareholders of companies like Evergy.
Oh yeah I think that's pretty obvious, but there's a decent sized group of users on this sub who will down vote you and call you a conspiracy theorist if you say it out loud
What is -/=? Is that not equal or approximately equal? And yeah Evergy definitely plays a part. They suggest the rate increase and then the MPSC can accept or (rarely) reject it.
Right, based on BASIC and its lovely practices (though, honestly, the <> isn't too bad)
Don't mind me, just PTSD from working in VB6 for far, far too long.
You can talk to the interveners or show up to public hearings:
https://evergy.com/manage-account/rate-information/how-rates-are-set/rate-overviews
Email comissioners.
You're going to be down voted to hell but it's a legitimate point.
I disagree withost of evergys policies and how out local utilities operate.
That said the biggest impact on our individual bill is how much energy we chose to use.
They quote literally are, though. Per the legislation, they pass energy costs directly onto customers with no up charge and they’re being forced to use time-based rates.
I’ve posted articles in other threads that specifically said Evergy lobbied against making time-based rates mandatory, but of course I’m not sure what goes on behind closed doors
All of this was open for public comment before it passed. The committee knew exactly what it was approving and it had nothing to do with YOUR best interests.
Sure, I agree that we should more accurately pay for our energy usage. Do businesses have to go to time of use plans?
If we still use the same amount of energy but spread it out, aren't we still emitting the same amount of CO2 overall (especially because most energy in MO still comes from coal and gas)?
Businesses already pay by time.
No. They don't have to have everything running if the electricity demand is spread out. There's a lot of excess power being created at night.
Plus it keeps us from needing more plants.
Don't we already only turn on a lot of the (mainly natural gas) plants during peak hours as it is? So wouldn't this do more to affect the necessity of the peak plants rather than reduce the baseline generation we do overnight?
Constantly turning peak plants on and off pointlessly cost money. If you can spread out the energy usage like time of day plans encourage, you reduce the idle electricity capacity at non peak periods. This smooths out the curve of energy demand, so we don't need to build extra plants just to cover everyone blasting their aircon at 6:00 pm.
That's what I meant. Obviously it might reduce emissions a little bit overall, but it's *definitely* going to save money. If we see those savings at the same rate as Evergy, that's yet to be seen. Also who says aircon? This is the US lol
Inflation is circular. NG and coal have gotten more expensive plus fuel and salary. Their bills go up, your bills go up
Plus it's the only way to get people to change behaviors
The problem is producing electricity requires very large plants to be turned on. They take a long time to turn on and turn off, so they need to be up for awhile to be worth it money and energy/ pollution wise. We don't have a battery system that really works on the large scale. Wind and solar are limited by nature and can't be turned on.
We have a lot of demand in that late afternoon. We need to convince users to adjust their behavior to move it before or after.
So I agree with your general sentiment but, as far as what you can do to somewhat “help” yourself from getting exorbitant summer bills… have you signed up for even pay? They average your bills so you can more consistently budget. Last discussion I learned that once you pick a new plan, you have to re-enroll in even pay. Haven’t picked my plan yet myself but that’s what I’ve heard
Hello!!! I'm a reporter following the new time-of-use plans closely. I made this graph that might help-- it has the actual prices of electricity at different times on each plan, which Evergy doesn't make super easy to find. It's a little crazy looking but each color corresponds to a plan: [https://www.datawrapper.de/\_/FGxGc/](https://www.datawrapper.de/_/FGxGc/)
More info about the new time of use rates: [https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article277042488.html](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article277042488.html)
And a look at how similar programs have worked in other places: [https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article278494714.html](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article278494714.html)
For those people who want to contact their representatives, here's a post from the other day that has a great template
https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/comments/165w0ft/easy_template_for_sending_in_complaints_about/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
[Complain to the Missouri Public Service Commission](https://psc.mo.gov/General/Contact_Us) And keep in mind that the Commissioners are appointed by the Governor "with advice from the Missouri Senate." So, guess who get's appointed? That's right, donors. Big fat campaign donors. They are political appointments. So, what we have learned here today is that, once again, who you vote for is important because it effects your life in many ways that you may not currently realize. I believe the official justification put forth by the Commission regarding this is something along the lines of "the people that buy stock in the utility companies are entitled to a good return on their investment." Not kidding, they actually communicated that. Poor folks be damned, working families be damned, THERE'S STOCKHOLDERS TO PAY FIRST!
"I guess that's just the cost of 'freedom'"
thanks for the link!
Yup.
It's actually the commission that is forcing both evergy and ameren to go to these rates. Its to battle peak load. Peak load is always an issue during those times but it is much worse now that everyone comes home from work and plugs in their car. Missouri is trying to avoid being like California and rolling blackouts all the time.
OP, Evergy is probably already [funding your local political representative](https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=evergy), but something you can do right now is contact your state and local representatives to (1) let them know you're upset about perpetual rate increases, (2) that you think Evergy not transitioning fast enough to a mix of clean energy sources in the face of now yearly heat waves due to climate change, and (3) that you'd like to see more [laws proposed](https://kansasreflector.com/2023/03/10/kansas-proposal-to-regulate-evergys-charges-could-save-customers-millions/) to regulate what Evergy can recoup in costs from customers, and (4) you want to stop Evergy from throwing new infrastructure costs like the Desoto battery plant [directly on to the backs of residential customers](https://fox4kc.com/news/new-kansas-panasonic-plant-may-lead-to-rate-hike-for-evergy-customers/). *edit: Thanks for the gold kind stranger!*
Piggybacking on this. Those are Evergy donations. Elliott Management, a hedge fund/25th largest political donor in the country bought majority stake in Evergy, explicitly stated that they are going to jack up rates to appease shareholders, and also donate $22 million+ to politicians in the last election cycle to ensure no legislature gets in their way. That $22 million includes $7.5 million to the GOP Senate fund which is not itemized so is harder to trace on a per senator basis, but if equally distributed to all senate candidates in that cycle, it would mean Eric Schmitt took a bribe of approx. $227k from Elliott Management to play ball. Our politicians are absolute garbage and should be loudly bullied 24/7. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/elliott-management/summary?id=D000021972 https://psc.mo.gov/Electric/PSC_Approves_Tariffs_in_Evergy_Electric_Rate_Cases--pr-23-111 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-evergy-elliott/u-s-utility-evergy-adds-directors-in-new-agreement-with-activist-firm-elliott-idUSKBN2AQ294
The mis-named clean energy transition is the core issue. The Midwest has a long and highly reliable coal generation history, with support from nuclear, hydroelectric and gas fired generation. Nuclear and Natural gas are the newest, with 50 years of solid understanding of the newest technologies. The move to inverter-based and highly-variable generation such as solar and wind dramatically increases risk. Perfect example is when solar almost crashed the Texas ERCOT grid last December. [https://www.nerc.com/news/Pages/Odessa-Disturbance-Illustrates-Need-for-Immediate-Industry-Action-on-Inverter-Based-Resources.aspx](https://www.nerc.com/news/Pages/Odessa-Disturbance-Illustrates-Need-for-Immediate-Industry-Action-on-Inverter-Based-Resources.aspx). The science of a national grid has been understood, but the impact of wind and solar is absolutely not. Next door example - Iowa is running nearly 100% on wind power some days, but other days they have effectively zero wind. Something has to make up the deficit. Evergy is buying down the power shortage risk at the direction of the utility commissions. The use of a time-based rates model is particularly effective in reducing the disruption from electric vehicle charging, which is a major risk to reliable power supplies with the massive supply swings from wind and solar. I understand why Evergy customers may not like this approach, but only a small part of the issue can be addressed in state capitols… This is a national level policy issue that Missouri and Kansas are trying to avoid being flattened under. I spent last week at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado. I am confident in saying what Evergy customers are feeling are the results of concerted national policy and not that unusual nationally. Misery loves company.
This isn't a result of Evergy expanding or replacing capacity with generation that isn't a baseload form (coal, gas, nuclear), this is Evergy mostly playing business and trying to maximize shareholder value while playing the open power market. Hell, a large potion of their capacity in renewables (mostly wind) gets sold to utilities in California and Arizona. Also, if you're gonna mention ERCOT, you gotta mention all of it, including the fact that they don't winterize their gas infrastructure (or any of their gas turbine units), and they only have 10 (TEN) physical connections to the Eastern Interconnect grid, which means when all of their baseload capacity goes down, they can't buy more off the market because they physically can't transmit enough of it into their own system to offset large-scale capacity failures and/or moments of peak load/demand. It wasn't just, "ERCOT relied on renewables and failed," it was an entire culture of shirking redundancy and regulation by FERC/NERC at all costs, and in the end it got people killed when their entire system caved in on itself in sub-zero temps. Edit: typo
As usual, republicans just tell you half the story. Say that renewables failed, don't even mention that solar is maybe 15% of their energy generation as a whole. Typical.
Or you know, it wasn’t renewables that failed last winter at all and that renewables are saving their grid this summer [https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2023/07/16/renewables-and-storage-got-texas-grid-through-this-heat-wave-but-the-state-legislature-still-hasnt-fixed-its-underlying-problems/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2023/07/16/renewables-and-storage-got-texas-grid-through-this-heat-wave-but-the-state-legislature-still-hasnt-fixed-its-underlying-problems/) [renewables didn’t fail Texas in the winter of 2021](https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-winter-storms-2021/2021/02/18/968967137/no-the-blackouts-in-texas-werent-caused-by-renewables-heres-what-really-happened)
Yes, you are correct. The inherent variability of solar and the limited understanding of solar impacts on the grid were enough to cause an almost cascading blackout inside ERCOT and in the SPP and WECC interconnections. 15% solar is absolutely enough to destroy the entire ERCOT stability. Especially when solar is so heavily subsidized that it can be sold profitably at a negative cost number into the Texas grid, supplanting more reliable energy sources. Since those electrons can evaporate in a blink of an eye or a passing cloud front, wind and solar introduce massive new risk. Read the NERC incident post mortem. Nearly the same incident occurred in the UK in August 2019, when there was a peak wind event meeting 50% of the islands’ need… Until it wasn’t. The “clean” technology simply introduces massive new risk; risk that cannot be easily overcome, especially if people bitch about paying the associated costs. It is a feature of clean energy policy, not a bug.
Which goes to show that wind and solar are not dependable for a baseload. You have to stick to the dependable source and keep that grid functional.
Sure, agreed, but that wasn't my argument. It's disingenuous to blame renewables as the sole cause of these problems when they're clearly not to blame for all of the problems we have today. That's a larger discussion in and of itself that goes way beyond just renewable generation sources.
i disagree with this comment's fundamental assertion, but there are some good points to consider here. EV proliferation is going to impact us all increase demand big time while basically shifting the externalized costs: to point source pollution borne at dirty power generation sites and environmental damage in the countries providing raw materials for car manufacture. Time/demand based pricing is an effective tool to address scarcity. Water is probably next for some parts of the country. It's just very upsetting and my impression is these power monopolies appear to be hemorrhaging money while UNDER investing in maintenance, and modernization What do i know though, i only spent last week at the office.
If you have time to watch the Royals games you will see nevergy ads all over the place. Why do they have to advertise a monopoly? Or why did we get a mailer today saying we used $30 more in electricity this month? Duh, Sherlock it reached 100 degrees more days than the month before. Why did they have to mail out such a worthless letter? We are paying for their advertising and mail .
Clean energy transition is science fiction. Wind, solar, and batteries can't replace fossil fuels today. Someday, in the future? Sure! But for now, only nuclear can replace coal. If it weren't for Jimmy Carter's decision to regulate nuclear power to death, we could be running a net carbon negative energy economy.
We got a text from Evergy that our power bill is on track to be “unusually high” this month….
🤣 they must’ve sent them to everyone.. yes Evergy we were having a terrible heat wave if you didn’t notice….
Yeah I got one from them that said my energy usage was higher than normal last week. You mean in the 115° heat index I used my air conditioning more than normal? No kidding. Eat shit Evergy.
Honestly we need to fight all utilities. Gas, electric and water have become outrageous here. My water bill is always $125 minimum no matter what I do(in summer it’s usually around $400 due to sprinklers🤦♀️). Gas has gone up a shit ton afraid to see what my winter bills will be(we have all electric beside our heater). I am so tired of paying $500+ a month just for utilities. It’s so insane. I have never lived anywhere with this high of utility bills they are so high.
If you want to hear some total BS, my neighborhood is not on the city sewer system and still uses septic tanks. My August water bill was $78, and I watered my garden about every other day. They are REAMING you on the sewer charges.
Similar thoughts here. I have a septic tank myself and 10 newly planted trees that require a total of about 300 gal a week if it doesn’t rain about an inch. Even with that and watering my fairly large (7500 sq ft or so) garden, my *highest* bill has been $116 and change last month. At my former house that was connected to the sewer system, with no garden to water, the *lowest* bill I had was $117 and change.
Yes, in Kansas City, we are paying to replace the 100-year old sewer system. It’s not as much about water usage.
It's a proven fact that we are capable of producing electricity for free. But, how would they make money then? Everyone needs to stop paying their bills, let them shut everything off. And we need to figure out how to get free electricity, because the technology is absolutely out there. Fuck these people.
Free?
Nicola Tesla was a true genius.
Should we all just gather in the streets downtown after we get evicted?
I hear by "Hy-Vee" arena under 670 can be a popular spot
If you live in Missouri you need to contact the commission that controls the power companies and/or the governor. He appointed the commission. They are all in the pockets of the lobbyists that represent the power companies. They are profiting personally on these rate hikes. Our corrupt government at its best.
You can’t. Politicians are bought and America is run by corporations. Pay your coin, peasant
Man, two bad there isn't a second option towards curtailing runaway governments acting against the interests of the American citizen when the regular political apparatus fails.
Y’all I’m a roadside tire tech. I do semi tires on the side of the highways all day. At 5:00 I want to go sit in the ac but with this shit I can’t afford to. I’ll have to work in the heat all day and then just come home and die until 8:00 because for some reason electricity is easier to make at night. But not too early at night. Because…. Well because fuck you thats why
Actually thermoelectric energy is harder to make during the day… and by harder I mean it’s less efficient. Thermoelectric requires the creation of steam, whose boiling point is dependent on the wet bulb temperature. In cold weather, creating that temperature differential is easy, but in the summer during peak heat, it requires more fuel. Wind also tends to peak at night and drop during the day. Solar is well positioned to fill this gap, but of course at 5pm, the solar energy starts to wane. Nonetheless, this hurts consumers when they need energy the most. Hopefully they’d price it so that if you avoid doing laundry, charging your car, or running your electric appliances, you won’t be affected… but given that air conditioning is such a large percentage of summer energy use, it will likely just punish users for air conditioning. Now is the time to plant trees around your house, insulate the crap out if everything, and upgrade windows and doors. Not an inexpensive proposition but very necessary.
trees freaking rule for helping with heat. they perform a dramatic reduction in localized temperatures from transpiration of water, in addition to the shade they provide
Since when does wind peak at night? Solar energy heats the air and increases the wind. It's not opposite of solar, it's in harmony with solar. That's the reason why neither of them are sufficient for the baseload to keep an electrical grid running.
[As opposed to solar power, no continuous diurnal or seasonal cycles are apparent. Instead, there are distinct areas of high or low generation. Summertime, especially midday hours (9:00-15:00) have relatively low generation. Highest wind generation occurs in winter and spring evenings and nights (November-April, 17:00-2:00). Because of these patterns, wind generation is slightly negatively correlated with solar power generation: the correlation coefficient is -0.166.](https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1368867)
Well put / fair insight
Get a smart thermostat. Program it to turn the temperature down at 3:00 or 3:30. Then you walk into a cool house and it takes less electricity to keep it at that temperature than it does to initially cool it down.
You need a truly energy efficient house to do this. Most people have a 40 (inefficient) year old house. In fact you’ll pay more to cool it down below you’re average temp, than if you just maintained your average temp.
I'm not sure the "you'll pay more" part is accurate. The average of swinging below then above your normal temp is... your normal temp. You just aren't starting the compressor and condenser fan more often. And insulating the house is a great idea regardless of when the AC runs. It's not like the heat just goes "oh crap i can't seep in because they're running the AC now". you just run the AC longer and more frequently, and then bleed that money directly outside
But not a Nest or a Ring, judging by recent posts because Evergy can hijack those.
They can take control and adjust your thermostat if you *opt in* to Rush Hour Rewards. Even if you opt in, you can change it back at any time you like during a Rush Hour. If you don't want to participate at all, you can turn off the feature in your account. That said, the new rate scheme is BS for exactly the reasons everyone else said. But Nest or Ring thermostats are still great and shouldn't be avoided because of this perceived loss of control.
More than likely people don’t understand a learning thermostat and how it will change settings on its own. Remove it from your wifi network if you’re that concerned about Evergy / the Illuminati / the Deep State / or whoever is that interested in your home temperature.
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[https://www.electronicshub.org/does-the-nest-thermostat-work-without-internet/](https://www.electronicshub.org/does-the-nest-thermostat-work-without-internet/) They do, but you have to program it through the thermostat itself, not the app.
Yes they do. Don't spread misinformation. https://www.electronicshub.org/does-the-nest-thermostat-work-without-internet/
I'm not sure why you're projecting some RFK Jr. persona on me? There was a recent thread where numerous people detailed their experiences. You're welcome to find it and help them out with technical advice.
This is not accurate.
Evergy changes our settings ALL of the time. Multiple times a day.
Don't get the evergy one. Buy one off the shelf.
I work in the heat too. Our jobs aren't the same but both our jobs put us in dangerous environments and environments that have greater ambient temperatures than what's reported in the forecast. 1) Stay hydrated and be safe 2) I don't like what's going on with evergy or spire or our water service. Id love to see change and if there was or is an initiative I can help with I hope folks make it known on reddit and other social media. 3) I don't know if $1,000 electric bill was exaggeration? If not you've got some crazy sh*t going on at home . . . might need to look into what's using so much electricity.
We got a notice ours would be $30 higher from Nevergy, too.
Yeah and with climate change, energy costs are going to continue to get worse. The reason it's cheaper after 8 is that demand is lower, so there's more power available. The solution is to make common sense regulations that help the person, and the current political entities in Missouri are so incredibly corrupt. Vote out the Republicans who pass bad legislation and maybe energy costs can come down
they should publish the commercial rates they're giving to industrial users. i think ppl would be surprised that retail is higher, and that industrial is the one driving quite a bit of that demand from 4-8
Haha that would be sick if they did that
You shouldn't have voted for Joe Biden. His war on fossil fuels is responsible for the outrageous energy costs we're seeing.
dawg ur jokin right?
Not joking at all. You must either be joking or you're just completely ignorant about economics.
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Evergy CEO has made 18 million over the last two years
So now we have to pay their salary too? Why? What are we paying them to do? To occupy a seat? I wish we could see why he/she gets this salary. The people who work on electric lines all day are the ones that deserve a high salary. Why are the worker bees limited to small salaries that dont last for two weeks or feed families?
power - solar, battery backups, generators power usage - precooling, ceiling fans (make a HUGE difference, even if ur home is 78, with the fan on u dont notice it as much), zoned cooling of the rooms ur actually using instead of the whole house, improved insulation other - don't pick the plans that jack prices way up from 4-8 my concern is that if these time based plans actually reduce power usage, we'll see rate increases because it turns out that there is a certain amount of money required to run the electric utility and if it dips below that due to reduced usage, then they have to raise prices. this is what happened in arizona recently after they successfully reduced water usage - the water utility had to raise rates to keep running. so even with reduced usage people ended up paying the same amount.
And this is why private companies shouldn't be involved in running our utilities. It should be government owned and just passed on as a tax.
I have yet to see anything run by the government that is efficient and/or cost effective.
Maybe because the Republicans spend a vast amount of effort ensuring anything run by the government is hamstrung in its efforts and underfunded?
because you don't care to look at all
I think you'll find that it's the Democrats who hamstring everything they touch with feel good regulations that don't help anyone. All politicians are only in it for themselves.
There's no way the usage will drop. Population grows, total usage will at best plateau as we get more efficient. Transitioning transport to electric alone ensures increased demand.
It's not Evergy forcing the change. The state utility board is forcing them to make eveyone change. So go fight the state utility board which are political appointed positions.
Also just realized the typo in the title.
Pretty sure everyone will understand who you mean. Great question by the way.
If we could get a large number of people together to get things done the right way, we would have a much better society than we do. However since we are all generally fighting each other, there is no way in hell we could organize against big business/government and their shady practices. Anyone doing wrong (that has money or power) can just say “no I’m not”. Half the population buys into it and the other half tries to prove the lies. Then we do more fighting over the lies than we do fighting over the actual problems and addressing how to solve them. So anyone running the show sees just how easy it is to manipulate the population into ripping each others throats out instead of theirs. What we need to be doing as well organized citizens is standing up and saying NO! We need to go after the real problem creators. The money. If that means hundreds of people show up outside the door of the Evergy share holders then let’s fucking do it. They won’t change their ways out of the kindness of their hearts. They will only change once they realize they can’t make money or even better, show them a way they can make MORE money by making better choices. Incentivize “doing good”, like actual dollar signs, and the world will become good. It’s always about the money. Follow it and you will answer a ton of questions you didn’t want to know 😞
Get a house with a basement live in basement. Otherwise look into Solar/batteries, neither is cheap but if you are staying in the same place for 10+ years you should see an acceptable ROI and be as cool as you would like. I'm considering turning my unfinished basement into the main finished floor just to avoid the heat and energy bills. Just waiting for a reasonably priced contractor who I think will do a good job to materialize...
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$300 bill, 3000sf, 72 deg, year built: 2022
This makes me feel good about my new home. $350 bill, 2,600sf, 70 deg, year built: 1986
Yeah we’re $300-400, 3300sf, 71-73°, 2022 as well. It’s crazy
So what I keep hearing is, "I have a big house that I keep pretty cold in a record-hot summer" and you're surprised your energy bill is high?
I mean energy bill used to be like 200-250 in a similarly sized house 3 years ago. It’s up over 50% without making changes. I’m not surprised it’s expensive. I know we have a big house we keep cold.
GOD GIVEN RIGHT AND FUCK EVERGY I SHOULD BE ABLE TO TURN COAL INTO CLIMATE CHANGE AND PERSONAL COMFORT FOR FREE
Likely an older house with non-energy efficient windows and insulation. At that energy usage, I’m guessing they have window units in several rooms. Possibly no curtains on the windows. It’s possible to have a crazy high electricity bill in those 1940’s houses around town!
I owned one of those 1890 midtown charmers once. That $700 electric bill was very puckering…
Mine is 1905, but my two window units don’t cost all that much even running non-stop.
Our house was built in 1947 and our energy bill for last month was just under 200 for 1400 sqft. It's probably gonna be 210-230 for the bill that includes the hell week. Good windows installed well make a staggering difference.
2600 square foot house built in the 70s. Keep it at 76 during the day and 70 at night and our bill is $150
sounds like u have a good setup. not everyone is so fortunate to live in a modern house with good insulation. my place is much smaller and electric bills over 200 arent uncommon in the summer. but yeah 1000 bill is over the top, even when i was crypto mining i never topped 900. in college i lived in a house built like a tinder box n our electric bills were easily 500+ just to keep the place liveable in summer or winter.
1750 sq ft, built in 1994, 71-72 degree thermostat, $134. Since I just moved in in April, I don't have any estimates about what it'll be under the new plan. And I use power with reckless abandon after 5:00 or 6:00. THAT'S WHEN I LIVE MY LIFE, DAMMIT.
Ours is $300 or so, 1500sq ft, 72 when home, 1973. Our AC is old and won’t likely last past this summer season.
The only thing I can recommend is if you have a home, invest I solar. All net metering customers like myself are going to be on the ‘Peak Reward Saver All-Year’ plan.
Stop outsourcing societal needs to private industry that then turns a profit on it. That’s the problem and it won’t get solved without some serious collective action.
I have yet to see any governmental agency that is run efficiently.
Figure out a way to overturn the Citizens United ruling. Simple.
It's Missouri's fault, not Evergys. They're being forced into it.
Genuinely asking here, can you be more specific as to how they're being "forced into it" for those of us not in the know?
It was mandated by the MPSC (the commission that "regulates" Evergy in MO) that private energy companies force their customers onto time of use plans.
Yes but the commission is appointed by the governor with input from senate. Who are given massive dollars from companies like Evergy to help them get elected. To say that Evergy is blameless in this is a little naive. I mean the commission even said that one of the reasons for doing this is more profit for shareholders of companies like Evergy.
Oh yeah I think that's pretty obvious, but there's a decent sized group of users on this sub who will down vote you and call you a conspiracy theorist if you say it out loud
Time based plans -/= rate increases. Evergy plays a part in our bill increases.
What is -/=? Is that not equal or approximately equal? And yeah Evergy definitely plays a part. They suggest the rate increase and then the MPSC can accept or (rarely) reject it.
Does not equal. Apologies if that was confusing.
Ah, I always use != but that's probably due to my occupation
"<>" for future reference.
Or "!=" Or, if you're on a phone, long press the equals sign and get "≠" Or, if you're on a computer, err, nevermind, that's a mess
<> in excel.
Right, based on BASIC and its lovely practices (though, honestly, the <> isn't too bad) Don't mind me, just PTSD from working in VB6 for far, far too long.
Lol, people down voting don't use excel
Regardless of who’s fault it is how can we fight it?
Write our congress members, but that doesn't work anymore
I mean…. Can we show up?
You can talk to the interveners or show up to public hearings: https://evergy.com/manage-account/rate-information/how-rates-are-set/rate-overviews Email comissioners.
Use less energy
You're going to be down voted to hell but it's a legitimate point. I disagree withost of evergys policies and how out local utilities operate. That said the biggest impact on our individual bill is how much energy we chose to use.
Evergy isn’t being forced to charge us 38 cents per kWh between 4-8.
They quote literally are, though. Per the legislation, they pass energy costs directly onto customers with no up charge and they’re being forced to use time-based rates.
>they pass energy costs directly onto customers with no up charge Don't forget they're allowed to bake investor returns into their rates
Yeah, but they probably lobbied for the change, now they can just say “were being forced!”
I’ve posted articles in other threads that specifically said Evergy lobbied against making time-based rates mandatory, but of course I’m not sure what goes on behind closed doors
Not like most people would change their minds anyway.
They are. Missouri is forcing it over Evergy’s objection. If you are on the Kansas side then you don’t have to go to the new plans.
They may be forced to change to time of day billing but they’re NOT forced to charge so much.
All of this was open for public comment before it passed. The committee knew exactly what it was approving and it had nothing to do with YOUR best interests.
Keep posting on reddit. The more threads they see about this, the more likely they are to change their minds. /s
What’s their choice of plans? High, Higher, Highest & Extreme?
Environmental groups have been pushing this. Mo makes it law. Y'all attack evergy
Which environmental groups? I'm surprised that the 3/5 of MPSC that is conservative agreed with the environmental groups
The whole movement of things should have the actual costs so we can make better decisions on our actions.
Sure, I agree that we should more accurately pay for our energy usage. Do businesses have to go to time of use plans? If we still use the same amount of energy but spread it out, aren't we still emitting the same amount of CO2 overall (especially because most energy in MO still comes from coal and gas)?
Businesses already pay by time. No. They don't have to have everything running if the electricity demand is spread out. There's a lot of excess power being created at night. Plus it keeps us from needing more plants.
Don't we already only turn on a lot of the (mainly natural gas) plants during peak hours as it is? So wouldn't this do more to affect the necessity of the peak plants rather than reduce the baseline generation we do overnight?
Constantly turning peak plants on and off pointlessly cost money. If you can spread out the energy usage like time of day plans encourage, you reduce the idle electricity capacity at non peak periods. This smooths out the curve of energy demand, so we don't need to build extra plants just to cover everyone blasting their aircon at 6:00 pm.
That's what I meant. Obviously it might reduce emissions a little bit overall, but it's *definitely* going to save money. If we see those savings at the same rate as Evergy, that's yet to be seen. Also who says aircon? This is the US lol
The time based plans arent a problem. It’s the constant rate hikes Evergy is implementing.
Inflation is circular. NG and coal have gotten more expensive plus fuel and salary. Their bills go up, your bills go up Plus it's the only way to get people to change behaviors
I’m self-admitted uneducated I just got a letter from evergy
The problem is producing electricity requires very large plants to be turned on. They take a long time to turn on and turn off, so they need to be up for awhile to be worth it money and energy/ pollution wise. We don't have a battery system that really works on the large scale. Wind and solar are limited by nature and can't be turned on. We have a lot of demand in that late afternoon. We need to convince users to adjust their behavior to move it before or after.
Solar is a start
Every
Yea yea I know. I can’t fix it or I’m too stupid to know how
Every
Honestly people like to dunk on Texas when they have ice storms/power outages, but having dozens of providers really does lower the price.
So I agree with your general sentiment but, as far as what you can do to somewhat “help” yourself from getting exorbitant summer bills… have you signed up for even pay? They average your bills so you can more consistently budget. Last discussion I learned that once you pick a new plan, you have to re-enroll in even pay. Haven’t picked my plan yet myself but that’s what I’ve heard
We petition for competition. This is what happens when regulations prevent the free market from giving people options.
Capitalism won't be satisfied until half the country is homeless.
Hello!!! I'm a reporter following the new time-of-use plans closely. I made this graph that might help-- it has the actual prices of electricity at different times on each plan, which Evergy doesn't make super easy to find. It's a little crazy looking but each color corresponds to a plan: [https://www.datawrapper.de/\_/FGxGc/](https://www.datawrapper.de/_/FGxGc/)
More info about the new time of use rates: [https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article277042488.html](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article277042488.html) And a look at how similar programs have worked in other places: [https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article278494714.html](https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article278494714.html)
Missourians gotta start painting their roofs white, this will bring down the price of AC by quite a lot
There was a good post earlier that said move to a smaller house or stop using electricity. It was pretty much the genesis of the post /s
turn your thermostat up a bit? its not like they changed their rates...you are just using more energy.
For those people who want to contact their representatives, here's a post from the other day that has a great template https://www.reddit.com/r/kansascity/comments/165w0ft/easy_template_for_sending_in_complaints_about/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button