NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — With the major announcement of a new Evergy power plant coming to Reno County in 2030, Hutch Post talked to Debra Teufel with the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce about how the deal came together.
"It has been no secret over the last couple of years that Evergy's economic development team has seen a heightened number of projects coming, looking at Kansas," Teufel said. "Evergy has had to look at every one of those with a fine tooth comb and say, can we use the limited amount of capacity that they have left in their system for us to compete for projects? It was just very fortunate that as we started about three years ago trying to put together a plan for how we acquire a large site and what ingredients that site has, that we started conversation about the site that we currently are developing on K-96, which is not the site where Evergy located. But it was, I feel like it was, the catalyst to get things started because as we started site acquisition and started looking at highway access, rail access, gas access, but also electric and water utility access, we started seeing a pipeline of projects that required more power than I had ever seen on projects in my life, and I've been doing this for about 25 years."
Once Evergy understood the future power needs of any industry that might come to Kansas, they knew they needed to get regulations worked on in Topeka to get things moving in a positive direction.
"They called us in our February, March timeframe and said they were going to be working on some legislation, and they needed legislative support," Teufel said. "They were lining up legislators to support a bill that they were taking through the process, and so we were in Topeka and had good conversations with our local legislators who were very supportive of the bill. I think that really led to them seeing Hutchinson and Reno County are all in lockstep together to try to move the needle on economic development. Paul Waggoner, Jason Probst, Michael Murphy, but also in particular Joe Seiwert, were all very supportive of the bill that Evergy took forward. In fact, I think Joe spoke for it on the floor of the House, and so as they continued getting that bill through the legislature, through both the House and Senate, once that happened, I got a call from another member of the Evergy team. They said, please provide us a little bit more information about the sites where we could build. So their site selection folks called in April shortly after the legislation was passed."
Ultimately, this resulted in an Evergy site tour in July.
"Many of us were under NDAs at that point," Teufel said. "The good thing was we had already assembled a strong team of what we're calling the K-96 steering committee, and that steering committee is helping guide discussion around how we deliver utilities to the K-96 site. It's made up of folks from the county, as well as South Hutchinson and Hutchinson. When Evergy scheduled a visit here in the first week of July, we were able to have all of those parties around the table so that when Evergy was here, a lot of the questions about just the philosophy of this community and how we're going to deliver water and wastewater services to sites to the south of Highway 50 could all come together in a way that people could provide at least theoretical answers and talk about some volumes that are available. When Evergy came in July, they brought a team, we had a meeting at the chamber and Evergy then divulged a little bit more information about those requirements for what their own utility needs would be."
Because the new plant is a natural gas plant, they needed pipeline access for a site and that's ultimately why they chose land at the corner of McNew and Morgan, near South Hutchinson. Then it was time for the Chamber to work on getting control of the land.
"Growth, Inc. actually took the option out and then there was the ability that that option could be assigned," Teufel said. "Then we have subsequently just immediately after assigned the option to Evergy. So they have a two-year option agreement and they can do their due diligence."
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with the plant coming on the system in 2030.