KMBC News summarized varying responses to Evergy’s long-term clean energy plans, citing comments from AEE’s Lisa Frantzis. Read snippets below and the full article here.

Kansas' largest electric company expects to make its first big investments in solar energy over the next three years and promises zero net carbon emissions in 2045.

Environmentalists don’t think Evergy is moving quickly enough. Conversely, other critics worry that its plans could make electricity more costly and less reliable…

The plan is inspiring a debate about climate change, electric rates and promoting social justice through energy policy.

“Most utilities see the handwriting on the wall,” said Lisa Frantzis, senior managing director for Advanced Energy Economy, a national association for clean-energy technology firms. “The customers, their ratepayers, are requiring it and we're even seeing even more and more pressure from financial institutions."

Eighteen states have a goal to generate all their power from renewable or clean sources by 2050, as do utilities such as Arizona Public Service and Duke Energy, according to Advanced Energy Economy.

Evergy would shut down nearly three-quarters of its coal-fired generating capacity by 2039, starting with a plant in Lawrence by 2023. Its capacity to generate power from wind farms would increase by 23 percent by 2026.

Evergy has almost no solar power now, but solar farms would provide 13 percent of its generating capacity within a decade. The first would go online in 2023.

But Evergy wants coal-fired power plants to back up wind and solar farms. … Better green technology also could prompt Evergy to forgo building gas-fired plants after 2030.

Read the full article here.