Evergy CEO Sees ‘Steady Cadence’ of ESAs Through 2028
Evergy Inc. has added 250 megawatts to its growth pipeline via expanded electric service agreements and signed a letter of intent for another 1.4 gigawatts with a major data center developer planning a project west of Kansas City.
Those new deals are likely to be followed by similar projects in coming quarters, Chairman and CEO David Campbell told investors and analysts on Nov. 5, and will help set the stage for Evergy’s annual load growth to rise from today’s pace of more than 8% “well into the 2030s.”
“Over the next 12 to 18 months, we see the potential for a steady cadence of pipeline conversions to announced ESAs,” Campbell said on a conference call discussing Evergy’s third-quarter results. “These agreements would further establish Kansas and Missouri as premier destinations for infrastructure investment.”
As at many of Evergy’s utility peers, large-load customers are playing a huge part in higher growth expectations. As part of their Q3 report, Campbell and his team said that two such customers expanded their ESAs by a combined 110 MW during the third quarter and that another customer this week signed up for an expansion of about 140 MW.
Much more is to come: Evergy executives also announced that they have signed a preliminary deal with Digital Realty Trust, one of the bigger names in the data center space, to expand their partnership by about 1.4 GW. Digital Realty is redeveloping part of the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in De Soto, Kansas, with a campus whose 280-acre first phase, Astra North, will comprise nine buildings totaling nearly 3 million square feet.
data center field
A Panasonic EV battery plant west of Kansas City is among the drivers of demand growth in Evergy's territories.Campbell told analysts his team expects to take the next big step with Digital Realty and sign an ESA by the middle of next year. Evergy’s investment to bring power to Astra North, he and CFO Bryan Buckler said, is likely to be about $4 billion.
That spending, as well as investments tied to other ESAs recently signed and anticipated, will deliver a big boost to Evergy’s future five-year capital plans. Today, those call for $21.6 billion in capex from 2026 through 2030 but Buckler noted the company’s 2026 integrated resources plan pencils in another nearly $1 billion. A comprehensive update, Buckler said, will come in February.
In the three months that ended Sept. 30, Evergy produced a net profit of $613 million, a jump of 29% from the same period last year. Revenues rose to nearly $2.1 billion from about $1.8 billion in the 2025 quarter. Total retail sales rose 4.5% year over year, driven by 8.7% growth from the company’s commercial customer base, which includes data centers.
Shares of Evergy (Ticker: EVRG) rose 1.4% to $87.41 after the earnings report and conference call. Over the past six months, they have risen 7%, growing the company’s market capitalization to about $20.2 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications T&D World, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner and Oil & Gas Journal. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.
