Evergy Sees $4 Billion of Generation Behind a Deal Digital Realty Has Not Signed

Shares of Evergy▲+0.57% — Evergy, up 0.57 percent today, the electric utility for Kansas and Missouri, touched an all-time high of $88.65 on November 5, 2026, on a quarter that, by the company's own arithmetic, leaned on the weather ¹. Adjusted earnings were $2.58 a share against $2.03 a year earlier, and chief financial officer Bryan Buckler put $0.46 of the increase down to weather, demand and large-customer revenue ²³. The durable news is a letter of intent↗ with Digital Realty▼−0.23% — Digital Realty, down 0.23 percent today, the data-center developer, for 1.4 gigawatts at the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in Kansas, beside the customer's existing project ².

The letter is the headline; the contracts are smaller

The electric service agreement behind the letter is not expected until the first half of 2027, and the roughly $4 billion of generation Evergy anticipates for it, most of it utility-owned, sits outside the five-year capital plan ²³. What Evergy signed this quarter was amendments adding about 110 megawatts to existing agreements, with 140 more contingent on a transmission study due by year-end ²³.

A minimum bill pays for capacity before it is drawn

Five executed agreements carry about 2.6 gigawatts of eventual peak load on 15-to-17-year terms with binding minimum bills: a customer pays for reserved capacity whether or not it draws it ²³. Those customers draw 350 to 400 megawatts today; the first bar below is power actually flowing, and the rest is ramp still to come ²³. That minimum bill is what lets a regulated utility finance plants for load that does not yet exist, and management says the Digital Realty expansion alone could add about two percentage points to long-term rate-base growth ⁴.

The funding decisions come before the contract

Evergy is already selling at-the-market equity, shares issued gradually into the market, with about $700 million priced this year against $700 million to $900 million a year through 2029 ³. Evergy Missouri West, one of its two Missouri utilities, asked the Missouri Public Service Commission on November 3 for about $182.6 million more a year, roughly $17.25 a month on a typical residential bill; interventions close on November 25↗ ⁵.

Expected revenue from two data-center customers trims that request by about $61 million, the same ratepayer-protection fight we watched Florida's regulators force on Duke Energy ⁶. Missouri Metro, the other Missouri utility, expects its rate order in December, and Kansas regulators rule by mid-2027 on a tariff rewrite adding non-refundable advance payments from large customers ²³. Public hearings before the Missouri Public Service Commission on a new gas plant near St. Joseph↗, which our earlier piece tied to this build, open on November 16 ⁷.

Digital Realty has promised that ratepayers will not pay

Digital Realty's chief executive, Andrew Power, told his own October call↗ that the company is developing the Sunflower site in De Soto, Kansas, and landed one of the largest leases in its history in Kansas City this year ⁸. His company has signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, whose commitment is that the cost of infrastructure for new data-center demand "should not be borne by residential customers and small businesses" ⁸.

If Digital Realty signs next year, Evergy collects on those minimum bills for power it finances now; if it walks, the growth case rests on a pipeline that is still letters, and the equity is already sold. The next marker is the February capital-plan update, when the $4 billion either enters the numbers or does not ²³.