photo by: Mike Yoder/Journal-World File Photo

A flock of birds glides over a field east of Evergy's Lawrence Energy Center in this file photo.

Come summertime in Lawrence, it’s no surprise to hear the hum of air conditioning units turning on to beat the heat. But what might be a surprise to some residents is the electric bill they’re paying for it — and one KU researcher thinks there’s a way the city could help make people more aware.

As the Journal-World has reported, energy costs have been on the rise recently in Lawrence and the surrounding area. Evergy raised the electric rates in November 2023, and residential customers in the area were expected to see about a $4.60 per month increase, on average, in their electric bills from that. On top of that, Evergy projected rates could increase by as much as 9% by 2030 to fund two natural gas power plants and a solar project.

Meanwhile, Black Hills Energy, the largest natural gas provider in Lawrence, is seeking a rate increase that likely would add an extra $11 per month for residential customers later this year, as the Journal-World reported.

Those costs impact every Lawrence resident, but renters often face a higher burden than homeowners. Research from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research organization, found that rental units use 15% more energy per square foot than owner-occupied homes, and those rates are even higher in older buildings.

S. Mohsen Fatemi, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas in the School of Public Affairs and Administration, serves on the city’s Environmental Sustainability Advisory Board, and he said the group has been exploring ways to decrease the high cost of energy, especially on renters. One step that could help renters, he said, would be creating a policy that would require landlords to disclose historical average utility costs to prospective tenants before a lease is signed.

Fatemi believes a policy like this would help empower renters by showing them what the full cost of a unit could be, as well as encouraging landlords to invest in basic energy-=efficiency measures.

Although Fatemi acknowledged there are details to iron out with any such proposal, he believes with the rising costs in Lawrence, this is the time to get serious and think of solutions to decrease the burden of energy costs and find ways to be more efficient.

“I wanted it to be something we start a conversation with,” Fatemi said. “I think it could be a good first step.”

Several U.S. cities have already adopted some form of utility disclosure policy for tenants — from large Midwestern cities like Minneapolis and Chicago to the Southern college town of Gainesville, Fla. Fatemi said those policies promote transparency in housing costs and encourage energy efficiency.

Kansas law does require some landlords to provide “a written explanation of utility rates, charges and services to the prospective tenant,” but that doesn’t apply if the utility charges are “paid by the tenant directly to the utility company.”

In his research, Fatemi said he would hear from people who said they signed a lease at a place with a low monthly rent, but once they got the utility bills, they found out the rates were much higher than they anticipated.

Fatemi said around half of Lawrence residents are renters, and a report from KU’s Life Span Institute and the LiveWell Sexual Violence Prevention Work Group found in 2023, roughly 49% of area renters are “cost-burdened,” meaning that a third or more of their income goes toward paying their rent, as the Journal-World reported. As utility rates continue to rise, Fatemi said the increased cost for energy can lead to residents making hard decisions to keep on the electricity.

“An increased energy burden means skipping food, skipping medication, skipping medical care and stress and anxiety and everything that comes with it,” Fatemi said.

With those higher utility costs, local nonprofits have seen more people come in seeking helping paying those bills. The Ballard Center is just one Lawrence nonprofit that provides rental or utility payment assistance. Kyle Roggenkamp, the nonprofit’s CEO, said the demand for utility assistance has grown every year. This year, the group put an extra $40,000 aside “to try to meet some of the additional need.”

Another reason why many renters have seen an increased burden for their energy bills is how the units themselves are built, Fatemi said. Homes in the U.S. built in 2000 and later use 21% less energy for heating than older homes. This improvement is due to more efficient heating equipment and better building designs that comply with stricter energy codes.

In Lawrence, nearly 75% of the homes were built before that year, and many more rental units are older and inefficient, using more energy and costing more.

“It’s millions of dollars in waste of money,” Fatemi said.

photo by: Contributed

S. Mohsen Fatemi

A key concept of Lawrence’s comprehensive plan, Plan 2040, is promoting responsible and energy efficient construction or remodels. Douglas County recently launched an energy savings hub website to help residents find incentives to make their properties more energy-efficient, as the Journal-World reported. But because owners of rental properties don’t live in their units, it makes it less likely that they could use those types of incentives to upgrade their units.

Fatemi thinks that having potential landlords disclose utility costs to tenants could create a market pressure for upgrades if renters can better compare the energy efficiency of units. A study from ACEEE found renters were 21% more likely to choose energy-efficient units when energy labels were provided.

“If I’m seeing one property getting 100 applications for one place, and my other one only getting one, it tells me something,” Fatemi said.

When Fatemi first introduced the discussion with the ESAB in April, many commissioners were supportive of the idea, but they also raised practical concerns, including data access, privacy protections and the challenges of enforcement. Any discussion of policies will still take a lot of work, but he thinks it can be a good way to start working to lower energy burdens since it won’t be imposing any costs on stakeholders while working toward other more systemic solutions.

“I hope this can create a conversation in the community … but (this policy) is somewhere to start,” Fatemi said.

And Fatemi believes it is important to start talking about energy concerns sooner rather than later. Energy usage, in part because of a rise of data centers that use a lot of energy resources, is increasing while costs are going up. All of this is not only more burdensome on the power grid, but also makes it harder for people already facing financial burdens.

“(Costs) are on the rise,” Fatemi said. “We need to do something; otherwise, we’ll deal with the consequences.”