The Kansas Corporation Commission has approved Westar Energy's rate increase request to help pay for environmental projects. This means residential customers who use about 900 kilowatt hours will pay about 67 cents more per month, for a total of $3.49 of each bill dedicated to environmental projects.
Westar will collect about $58 million to cover its environmental costs. The company had requested $1.2 million more than it received. That's about $11 million more than the utility recovered last year.
Westar listed 20 environmental projects it had to meet federal or state requirements, and commission staff found all the projects met the standards for cost recovery.