The total cost from a more than week-long cold snap that brought the Midwest power supply to the brink of collapse is nearly $1 billion — and growing. The greatest breakdown during the storm, which forced controlled electrical blackouts in Kansas and Missouri, industry groups have said, was natural gas, which was in short supply and rose to 200 times its normal price during the worst stretch of the storm. So far, two of Kansas’ largest natural gas companies have filed to collect a combined $539.5 million from ratepayers over as long as 10 years. Some Evergy customers in Kansas will pay for $152.3 million in power costs from Winter Storm Uri over two years. But as regulators review those companies’ plans and prepare to pass on the costs to Kansas ratepayers, some groups representing large-scale customers say that — even six months later — the state has more work to do investigating the cause of huge natural gas price spikes during the storm.
Source: Kansas Reflector
