New ‘time-based’ Evergy rates could hurt Missouri wallets. And it’s just getting hotter | Opinion

Air conditioning isn’t a luxury in Missouri this week. It’s a dire necessity.

The state has been hit with another excruciating heat wave, one that is expected to last most of the week, and which doesn’t even really subside during the nighttime hours. (The heat index at Kansas City Downtown Airport was 104 degrees just before 1 a.m. Monday.) Given those conditions, the safest and sanest option is to stay inside, stay hydrated and keep the AC running.

Climate change doesn’t feel very good, does it?

But dealing with a warming planet isn’t as simple as heading inside and out of the sun. For many Missourians, that heat is about to make life more complicated — and potentially much more expensive.

Evergy, which serves electric customers in Kansas City and the surrounding western Missouri counties, is shifting to “time-based” rate plans this fall. And the default plan that most customers use will charge higher rates — much higher rates — during some of the hottest hours of the hottest months of the year.

How much higher? During most hours, customers will be charged 9 cents a kilowatt hour. During the summer months, between the hours of 4 to 8 p.m. — when electricity use and its strain on the grid is at its highest — the rate will be a whopping 38 cents a kilowatt hour.

Believe it or not, the point here is not to punish Missourians for running the air conditioning during the times of year they need it most. Instead, the idea is to encourage customers to spread out their electricity use — of large appliances like dishwashers, dryers and even charging electric cars — throughout the rest of the day. (Evergy offers tools on its website to help customers choose a rate plan that’s best for them.)

Discouraging electricity use during peak hours

“As energy demand rises, the cost of generating electricity also increases,” the company says, and adds: “With time-based plans, it’s important to avoid using large amounts of energy during the peak hours.”

That is probably a good idea. We’ve seen heat waves lead to brownouts and rolling blackouts, in states like California, when the electrical grid is overburdened.

But it will represent a shift in how many of us think, or don’t think, about how we run our households. “Plug it in and forget it” will become a thing of the past. If not, the results will be apparent in our electric bills.

And some Missourians will be less able than others to adapt to a new era of shifting rates.

“People with the flexibility to lower their usage during peak hours may see some benefit, but without that flexibility users will likely end up with larger bills than they had before,” Raymond Forstater, an organizer with the Kansas City chapter of the Sunrise Movement, told The Star’s Natalie Wallington last month.

This won’t be the last devastatingly hot summer in Missouri. Studies show that climate change is making heat waves — like the one we’re experiencing now — more frequent and more intense. Vulnerable people were always going to be disproportionately burdened by that trend. The new Evergy rate plans, though, suggest that the heat will be costly for all of us.

Unfortunately, Missourians have been ill-served by Republican leaders who continue to play down climate change and its effects.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, in particular, often criticizes “climate alarmists” and has depicted environmentalists as being in the grips of “anti-human ideology.” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, meanwhile, in recent weeks has attacked climate envoy John Kerry for suggesting that America’s agriculture sector should cut its carbon emissions. Neither man has grappled meaningfully with the very real harm the heat will do to their constituents.

They won’t be paying Missourians’ electric bills next summer, will they?

This story was originally published August 22, 2023 at 5:03 AM.