Raised long-term EPS growth target to 6-8% plus through 2030
Evergy reported FY2025 EPS of $3.83, slightly missing guidance due to weather and weak industrial demand, but painted a very bullish picture for the future. Management announced 1.9 GW of new, contracted data center load (ESAs) and raised its long-term EPS growth target. FY2025 adjusted EPS came in at $3.83, missing guidance due to weather and soft industrial demand.
Buzzberg readRaised long-term EPS growth target to 6-8% plus through 2030Evergy reported FY2025 EPS of $3.83, slightly missing guidance due to weather and weak industrial demand, but painted a very bullish picture for the future. Management announced 1.9 GW of new, contracted data center load (ESAs) and raised its long-term EPS growth target. FY2025 adjusted EPS came in at $3.83, missing guidance due to weather and soft industrial demand.Read full analysisCollapse analysis
Evergy reported FY2025 EPS of $3.83, slightly missing guidance due to weather and weak industrial demand, but painted a very bullish picture for the future. Management announced 1.9 GW of new, contracted data center load (ESAs) and raised its long-term EPS growth target. FY2025 adjusted EPS came in at $3.83, missing guidance due to weather and soft industrial demand.
Announced ESAs for four data center projects (1.9 GW), leveraging new Large Load Power Service (LLPS) tariffs with minimum bill protections.
Raised long-term adjusted EPS growth target to 6-8%+ from 2026 base, with >8% annual growth expected starting in 2028.
Increased 5-year capex plan by $4.1B to $21.6B, driving 11.5% rate base growth.
Revenue$1.3282B
reported
EPS$0.42
reported
Gross margin24.63%
reported
Op margin17.09%
reported
What changed this quarter
01
Guidance
Raised long-term EPS growth target to 6-8% plus through 2030
Guidance tone
02
Demand
Signed ESAs for four data center projects totaling 1.9 GW
Management expressed strong confidence in the growth outlook, highlighted transformative data center agreements and raised long-term EPS growth guidance, while acknowledging 2025 misses were due to weather and weak industrial demand.
03
Demand
Expect at least one more ESA executed in 2026
Signed ESAs for four data center projects totaling 1.9 GW. Management expressed strong confidence in the growth outlook, highlighted transformative data center agreements and raised long-term EPS growth guidance, while acknowledging 2025 misses were due to weather and weak…
04
Capex
Capital plan increased to $21.6 billion, driving 11.5% rate base growth
Management raised its five-year capital plan to $21.6 billion for 2026-2030, a $4.1 billion increase over the prior plan, primarily for new natural gas generation to support data center load growth and meet SPP reserve margin requirements. Rate base growth is expected to be…
Demand & capex
Demand
Bookings & conversion
Signed ESAs for four data center projects totaling 1.9 GW. Management expressed strong confidence in the growth outlook, highlighted transformative data center agreements and raised long-term EPS growth guidance, while acknowledging 2025 misses were due to weather and weak industrial demand.
Capex
Investment and capacity
Management raised its five-year capital plan to $21.6 billion for 2026-2030, a $4.1 billion increase over the prior plan, primarily for new natural gas generation to support data center load growth and meet SPP reserve margin requirements. Rate base growth is expected to be 11.5% annually through 2030.
Tone · Upbeat Confident
Management expressed strong confidence in the growth outlook, highlighted transformative data center agreements and raised long-term EPS growth guidance, while acknowledging 2025 misses were due to weather and weak industrial demand.
Bottlenecks
Power & gridpersistent
Power or grid availability is constraining capacity
“As outlined in our capital plan, we will continue to invest in grid modernization to ensure reliability, as well as grid resiliency, strong customer service, and generation availability.”
The new ESAs go beyond just signed commitments; the tariffs include explicit minimum monthly bill provisions that are contractually escalated over time based on a schedule in each agreement. This converts uncertain future load into a predictable, contracted floor on revenue.
“As a reminder, these tariffs have minimum bill provisions... they cover no less than 80% of their contracted capacity at a premium demand rate.”
While the 1.9GW of ESAs are transformative, the company models a very specific ramp that is heavily back-end loaded; the 'plus' in the 6-8% growth guidance and the '>8% acceleration' after 2028 is contingent on these customers reaching their contractual peak load.
“This outlook reflects our expected case, which is informed by the specific load ramps as outlined as part of each customer ESA.”
Evergy has signed ESAs with Google for two data center projects, signaling significant, long-term demand for power in the region.
“These commitments solidify Missouri and Kansas as premier destinations for data center customers and are the product of strong partnerships with world-class customers in Google, Meta, and Beale, who we'd like to thank for their investments”
… ramping up after that year. This outlook reflects our expected case, which is informed by the specific load ramps as outlined as part of each customer ESA. And finally, we're making strong progress with several additional large customers and expect at least one more executed ESA in 2026. This upside is not captured in either the financial outlook or sales forecast we're sharing with you today. These commitments solidify Missouri and Kansas as premier destinations for data center customers and are the product of strong partnerships with world-class customers in Google, Meta, and Beale, who we'd like to thank for their investments in Kansas and Missouri. As customers complete construction, they are responsible to pay their fair share of costs incurred to serve them, including the LLPS premium pricing. As an additional protection, if their actual usage falls short of annual expectations, they are subject to minimum bill provisions, which provides strong visibility to our 68% plus EPS growth outlook and the affordability benefits we can expect to provide our current customers. Slide 7 summarizes the progress we've made in converting our Tier 1 large customer pipeline to signed …
Panasonic is ramping up its manufacturing facility, providing a strong load growth driver for Evergy in 2026.
“In recent months, they're drawing a considerable amount of load now, more and more each month. We certainly expect their load in 26 to be within the range of our planning assumptions.”
Great. Thank you for that, Culler. And then just changing gears a little bit, you mentioned that weak industrial demand played a part in the results for this quarter. What gives you confidence that will turn around in 2026? How much of your overall industrial load is represented by the Panasonic project?
Management answer
Brian BucklerExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Hey, Andrew, this is Brian. Thanks for the question. Industrial load in 2025, we were kind of fighting it all year long. January and February of 2025, we had massive snowstorms in Kansas City, and some of our largest businesses closed their doors for many days. And then we had a large oil refinery to add an outage early in the year. And then industrial demand picked up with Panasonic. But ultimately, by the end of the year, fourth quarter, it was a disappointing level of industrial demand again. And with industrial demand, there's a price component to lower price if you hit a lower peak demand. So that had a kind of a double effect on our 25 earnings. Now, we've embedded all of this recent weakness and industrial load into our 2026 model already. So our forecasting team, we kind of did a gut check and said, how comfortable are we with these load numbers in 2026? We did modify them down, and that's fully reflected in the $4.24 of guidance for EPS in 2026. So we feel like we're in good shape there. The January 26 books we just closed maybe 10 days ago, and And those numbers came in really strong. So we're pleased with our start to 26. It's only one month, of course. And then lastly, I'll just say with Panasonic, they certainly started out 25 at a slower pace than we had hoped. But in recent months, they're drawing a considerable amount of load now, more and more each month. We certainly expect their load in 26 to be within the range of our planning assumptions. In a recent press release, a Panasonic executive mentioned that they plan to start two new production lines at their Kansas facility this year and will wrap up the 50% of total capacity early this year. I don't know that we've given explicit megawatt numbers for Panasonic, so I can't really give you that kind of detail around its percentage of industrial load.
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