Power Supply

In an effort to create a long-term, reliable, economic power supply for its members, KEPCo has built a diverse power supply that includes nuclear, hydro, coal, wind, natural gas, diesel, and solar resources.

As part of its power supply strategy, KEPCo seeks to maintain a diversified and balanced power supply, which includes a mix of owning generation when prudent, purchasing power using a combination of long- and short-term contracts, adding renewables when cost effective, and incorporating demand side technology in power supply planning processes through member load management programs.

KEPCo’s power supply continues to diversify and we are proud that approximately 60% of our energy resource mix is non-greenhouse gas emitting. Our energy mix includes:

  • 70 megawatts of owned generation from the Wolf Creek Generating Station

  • 32 megawatts of owned generation from the Iatan 2 Generating Plant

  • 20 megawatts of peaking power from the Sharpe Generating Station

  • 1 megawatt of solar power from the Prairie Sky Solar Farm

  • 100 megawatts of hydropower purchases from the Southwestern Power Administration

  • 13 megawatts of hydropower purchases from the Western Area Power Administration

  • partial requirement power purchases from regional utilities

2023 KEPCo Sources of Energy-01

Power Supply Resources

Wolf Creek Generating Station

KEPCo owns an undivided 6% interest in the Wolf Creek Generating Station, a nuclear power plant located near Burlington, Kansas.

Wolf Creek has been in commercial operation since 1985 and its initial 40-year operating license has been extended to 60 years, to 2045. Of its 1,168 MW net output for total plant, KEPCo’s share is 70 MW. On average, Wolf Creek provides over 25 percent of KEPCo’s annual energy requirements and 17 percent of KEPCo’s annual capacity requirements. Employing 800+ full-time personnel, Wolf Creek contributes approximately $30 million in annual property taxes and provides approximately $165 million annually in economic benefit to the state of Kansas. Wolf Creek has proven to be a reliable, cost-effective, carbon-free, and – importantly – safe resource in KEPCo’s power supply portfolio.

Iatan 2

Iatan 2 is a high efficiency, supercritical, pulverized coal-fired plant located near Weston, Missouri.

The plant began commercial operation in 2010. Of its 881 MW net output for total plant, KEPCo’s share is 31 MW, or 3.53 percent. With its state-of-the-art emission control systems, Iatan 2 is considered one of the most efficient, low-pollution coal units in the United States. On average, the plant provides approximately 8 percent of KEPCo’s annual energy requirements.

Sharpe Generating Station

Located near Burlington, KEPCo wholly owns Sharpe Generating Station.

Sharpe is comprised of ten 2-MW Caterpillar diesel-fired generators with 20 MW total capacity. Sharpe is used as capacity reserves and is registered in the Southwest Power Pool, Inc. Integrated Market. It is also used as an alternate source of power to Wolf Creek Generating Station during certain plant conditions.

Prairie Sky Solar Farm

Prairie Sky Solar Farm, located near Andover, Kansas, began commercial operation in February 2017.

Proudly engineered and procured by KEPCo’s wholly owned subsidiary, KEPCo Services, Inc. (KSI), Prairie Sky produced 1,840 MWh (net) in 2019 and provided an average demand offset of 933 kW in each of the four summer months. Prairie Sky is comprised of 4,560 photovoltaic panels and covers approximately 8 acres. It has 1 MW total capacity.

Prairie Sky is comprised of 22 rows of panels, four of which are half rows. In order to capture the most sun during the four months of the summer peak season, it was designed with fixed tilt panels positioned at 30° and orientation to the southwest.

Due to significant member and consumer interest, Prairie Sky was constructed as a pilot project to provide KEPCo an educational and operational opportunity to develop a utility-scale solar facility with minimal risk. Prairie Sky is a cost-effective, reliable, and environmentally friendly generation resource in KEPCo’s power supply portfolio.

Hydro Allocations

KEPCo has contracts with two of the four power marketing administrations within the U.S. Department of Energy, Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) and Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA), whose role it is to market and transmit wholesale electricity from multi-use water projects.

By law, WAPA’s and SWPA’s power is marketed and delivered primarily to public bodies such as rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities, including KEPCo.

WAPA markets and delivers hydroelectric power and related services within a 15-state region of the central and western United States from 57 hydroelectric power plants operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the International Boundary and Water Commission. In total, WAPA’s power plants have an installed capacity of over 10,000 MW. KEPCo has a 13 MW allocation of firm hydro power from WAPA.

SWPA markets hydroelectric power in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas from 24 hydroelectric generation facilities owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers totaling over 2,000 MW of generating capacity. KEPCo has a 100 MW allocation of peaking and supplemental hydro power from SWPA.

Purchased Power

In addition to its owned generation and long-term hydro allocations, KEPCo purchases its remaining requirements from Evergy Kansas Central, Inc. (formerly Westar Energy, Inc.) and Sunflower Electric Power Corporation for base, intermediate, and peaking power supply.

KEPCo purchases approximately 158 MW from Evergy and 59 MW from Sunflower. These contracts provide KEPCo with power from coal, natural gas, and wind resources.