Northeast News
April 15, 2011

Kansas City Power & Light Company (KCP&L) customers will soon pay more for service.

The Missouri Public Service Commission granted KCP&L an electric rate increase of approximately $34.8 million to reflect the company’s increased costs of providing service to its customers.

KCP&L said its main reason for requesting the rate increase was due to the newly added latan 2 coal-fired power plant. In addition, the rate request reflects costs related to environmental upgrades at the latan 1 power plant, infrastructure and transmission projects, renewable energy projects and the cost of transporting coal to its power plants.

The commission estimates residential customers will see an average increase of $4.85 per month.

This is the fourth rate increase since 2005. The rate increases are part of a 2005 agreement that established an experimental regulatory plan to detail KCP&L’s future needs. It also established a phase-in of rate increases to ease customer rate shock and also fund the construction of a new generation plant and necessary upgrades to other plants.

KCP&L currently serves approximately 509,000 electric customers in western Missouri, including the Kansas City area.