Date: November 2025

This session showcases Evergy’s data-driven approach to improving the performance and cost-effectiveness of its residential demand response (DR) program by optimizing one-way thermostats. Serving over 1.7 million customers in Kansas and Missouri, Evergy faced declining load reductions from legacy devices, impacting DR accreditation. Partnering with Resource Innovations (RI), Evergy conducted an operability study that found nearly 80% of devices were non-responsive—largely due to rural communication failures. Inoperable paging towers were identified as a key issue. Rather than pursue an expensive transition to smart thermostats, Evergy is prioritizing infrastructure upgrades in targeted areas for maximum DR recovery. At the same time, the utility is planning a switching survey to assess a phased shift to smart devices. This session will share how analytics, cross-team collaboration, and system-level insights are enabling Evergy to preserve value from existing assets, plan for modernization, and strengthen both grid reliability and customer satisfaction.

Speakers:
George Jiang, Resource Innovations
Geoff Pratt, Evergy