CompanyGraph
Evergy Inc.
EVRG · United States
Recovers capital from a single nuclear station and Kansas wind farms through two independent state regulatory proceedings that must separately price the same shared generation assets.
Wolf Creek Nuclear Station and the Kansas wind farms feed a single shared grid whose costs must be divided between two state rate bases, so every capital investment — whether in generation or the transmission connecting it — cannot enter cost recovery until the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Missouri Public Service Commission each independently approve their allocated share. Because those two proceedings run on different schedules with different cost-allocation priorities, the gap between deploying capital and recovering it through rates is set entirely by regulatory throughput, not by how fast assets can be built. Wind development could replicate at low incremental cost across available land and existing interconnection points, but that same dual-approval requirement means each additional wind project triggers two separate proceedings, making the regulatory calendar the binding limit on how fast the portfolio can grow. Wolf Creek concentrates this structure's central vulnerability: because it is the single asset anchoring cost recovery in both jurisdictions at the same time, any NRC license complication or extended outage suspends rate base productivity in Kansas and Missouri together, exposing the entire dual-jurisdiction system to one indivisible physical event.
How does this company make money?
The company recovers its capital through a regulated rate-of-return structure, meaning each state commission sets the allowable return on approved rate base investments — Kansas and Missouri doing so independently for their respective shares. Fuel costs for coal and nuclear operations are recovered through fuel adjustment clauses, which are mechanisms that allow utilities to pass through changes in fuel costs to customers between full rate cases. Wind investment costs are recovered through a separate renewable energy rider, a cost-recovery track that the commissions approve specifically for qualifying clean energy expenditures.
What makes this company hard to replace?
Three specific mechanisms make displacement difficult. Exclusive service territory grants from the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Missouri Public Service Commission block competitive entry into the company's operating areas by legal boundary. Existing transmission interconnections to Wolf Creek and the wind farms require separate regulatory approval before they can be transferred to another operator. SPP's transmission planning process is built around the current grid configuration, locking that configuration in place and making it difficult to restructure without restarting the planning process.
What limits this company?
Each generation or transmission investment shared across both states must clear two independent commission proceedings with non-synchronized schedules, creating a structural delay between capital deployment and rate base entry that cannot be shortened by operational or financial means — only by each commission's separate procedural calendar.
What does this company depend on?
The structure depends on five specific upstream inputs: the Wolf Creek Nuclear Station operating license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the federal body that authorizes nuclear plant operation), rate-setting authority held by the Kansas Corporation Commission, rate-setting authority held by the Missouri Public Service Commission, dispatch coordination provided by SPP (the Southwest Power Pool, the regional body that manages transmission across a multi-state grid), and coal supply contracts that keep the Kansas generation fleet running.
Who depends on this company?
Kansas municipal utilities rely on this company for wholesale power supply to rural distribution systems and would lose that supply in a disruption. Missouri industrial customers — including agricultural processing facilities — depend on continuous power and would face immediate production shutdowns without it. SPP grid operators depend on the company's wind generation capacity and would lose it during peak demand periods if that capacity went offline.
How does this company scale?
Wind farm development replicates at relatively low incremental cost across Kansas and Missouri plains because consistent wind resources and existing transmission interconnection points are already in place. The bottleneck as the company grows is the dual-state approval process: each additional generation investment requires separate rate proceedings before both the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Missouri Public Service Commission, which operate on different schedules and apply different priorities, so regulatory throughput — not physical buildout — limits expansion.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
Federal tax credit phase-outs for wind generation affect the investment economics of wind projects in both states. Midwest severe weather events can require grid restoration across the Kansas-Missouri border at the same time, stressing operations on both sides. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license renewal requirements for Wolf Creek create planning constraints around the station's long-term baseload capacity.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
Because Wolf Creek is the single asset anchoring cost recovery in both state rate bases at the same time, an NRC license complication or extended outage suspends rate base productivity in Kansas and Missouri together, concentrating the full dual-jurisdiction regulatory risk on one indivisible physical event.
Supply Chain
Electricity Grid Supply Chain
The electricity grid is shaped by three structural constraints that no other supply chain faces simultaneously: electricity cannot be stored at scale and must be consumed the instant it is generated, power degrades over distance with capacity set by the weakest link in the transmission path, and grid topology was built over a century and cannot be quickly reconfigured.
Nuclear Energy Supply Chain
The nuclear energy supply chain is shaped by three structural constraints that most industries never encounter: regulatory and licensing timelines that stretch beyond a decade before a reactor generates a single watt, a fuel cycle where each step — mining, conversion, enrichment, fabrication — is restricted by both physics and international treaty, and a decommissioning obligation embedded from the moment a plant is approved, binding operators to costs that extend decades beyond the last kilowatt-hour sold.