Top Tier — Missouri Battery Sales Reference

Evergy Missouri (Metro) · Kansas City & Western Missouri

Sales reference for reps working Evergy Missouri territory. This is the deep reference — how to sell it up top, full utility detail below. Evergy Missouri Metro serves roughly 600,000 customers on the Missouri side of Kansas City. Here's how solar billing works here, stated plainly: within each billing month, everything your solar produces nets against everything you use, kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour across all hours — the standard residential rate's energy charge is flat, so a noon export cancels an evening import at full value automatically. That has one direct consequence: on the standard setup, a battery does not reduce an Evergy bill — the netting already time-shifts your solar for free, and our projections show it that way. We say that out loud, because the rep who says it is the rep the customer believes about everything else. One documented exception exists, and it's an advanced play, not a default: a customer may elect Evergy's Residential Time-of-Use rate, which moves netting to a per-period basis with a real twenty-plus-cent gap between peak and off-peak — that's a genuine battery lever, evaluated per customer, never baked into a quote. What the battery is for everyone else: the only part of the system that works during an outage — and Kansas City has taken three named storm events in sixteen months, the freshest six weeks ago — plus insurance on netting terms that live in a statute, plus the full system takeover. Backup first, the advanced play where it genuinely fits, the takeover always.

What kind of market this is

Evergy Missouri is a monthly-netting market where the battery's bill value on the standard rate is approximately zero — said plainly — with one documented advanced lever (the RTOU election) evaluated per customer, a three-storms-in-sixteen-months resilience record, and a hard Metro-vs-West jurisdiction gate. Five defining facts:

1. Monthly netting across all hours — the grid time-shifts for free. Within a billing month, exports and imports cancel kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour regardless of timing. The default residential rate (Schedule RPKA, "Peak Reward Saver") carries a flat energy charge — its peak character comes from a small adjustment rider on the order of a cent, not a real price gap. Net result: storing noon power for evening use changes nothing the month-end total can see — on the standard setup, the battery's bill impact is approximately zero, and every projection we show says so.
2. The documented advanced lever: electing RTOU. A customer may elect Evergy's Residential Time-of-Use rate, and net metering on that schedule nets per period — where the published peak/off-peak gap is genuinely large, on the order of twenty-two to twenty-eight cents in summer. On that rate, a battery discharging through the evening peak does real work. It's a whole-rate-structure change with trade-offs, one interaction detail still unconfirmed with Evergy — so it's a per-customer evaluation with their actual usage, never a default quote and never a projected-income figure.
3. Monthly excess is a system-sizing note, not a battery job. Whatever exceeds usage in a month is credited at avoided fuel cost — about two cents (Metro; the tool carries the current figure) — expiring at twelve months with no cash-out. No battery carries April's surplus to July; chronic over-production is an array-sizing conversation, and we have it straight.
4. The jurisdiction gate is hard. This guide and the tool model Evergy Metro (Kansas City, ~600K customers). Evergy West — St. Joseph and western Missouri — is a legally separate tariff book with its own figures. A West customer gets flagged for jurisdiction-correct numbers, never quoted Metro's.
5. Kansas City's storm record is dense and fresh. March 5, 2025: ~190,000 Evergy customers out at peak (66–70 mph winds — the marquee). May 19, 2025: ~42,000+. May 18–19, 2026: ~64,000 peak — six weeks ago. Three named events inside sixteen months; grid-tied solar produced nothing through any of them.

Your lead is resilience, opened with the honest zero. "On your current rate, a battery will not lower your Evergy bill — your netting already does that job" is the strongest opening in this market: checkable, disarming, and nobody else says it. Then the case: three storms in sixteen months and every solar roof dark through them; netting terms that sit in a statute; the takeover behind an orphaned system. And for the right customer — high evening usage, comfortable with a rate change — the RTOU evaluation is the genuine upside conversation, run on their numbers.

Default configuration: backup-capable — in this market, backup isn't the default, it's the point.

• Backup-capable: $18,500 cash / $23,942 financed / ~$228/mo
• Self-consumption-only: $17,000 cash / $22,068 financed / ~$210/mo

Confirm pricing, configuration, and Metro-vs-West by the bill before quoting — and note the tool shows the with-battery bill equal to today's bill, by design.

PART A — The Pitch (Problem → Solution → Urgency → Close)

The spine is multiple beats per section: customer headline + statement + rep layer (+ objection where noted). Beats marked (BACKUP ONLY) render only for backup config.

The Problem

Your solar handles the bill. It handles nothing else. Your monthly netting is genuinely good — within each month, what you make cancels what you use at full value, whatever the clock says. Here's what that arrangement doesn't touch: your home goes dark the moment the grid does, because grid-tied panels shut off in an outage for line-worker safety — and this metro has been through three of those events in sixteen months. Your netting terms live in a state statute. And whoever installed the system may not answer the phone anymore.

Rep layer: The honest opener — the netting praised first (credibility), then the three gaps: outage exposure (anti-islanding; three named events), statutory position (RSMo 386.890; the 2025 bills that touched the framework died — evidence of revisiting, never a deadline), orphaned system. NO bill-savings implication — the with-battery bill equals today's bill on the standard rate and the tool shows it. RPKA precision if it comes up: the energy charge is flat; the "peak" character is a small adjustment rider on the order of a cent — no real gap for a battery to work on the default rate. Objection — "So why add anything?" The bill was never the exposed part. Keep listening.

Your system is orphaned. Whoever installed your solar is likely gone, merged, or unreachable — especially after so many installers folded when the federal tax credit expired at the end of 2025. If something goes wrong, there's no one accountable. You own the system and the risk.

Rep layer: Standard orphaned-system beat. Ask who installed it and whether they'd answer a service call.

Your inverter is on the clock. Your inverter is several years old. When it fails out of warranty, that's about $3,500 to $5,000 out of pocket — and your system produces nothing until it's replaced, typically 4 to 8 weeks.

Rep layer: Standard inverter beat. SolarEdge ~12-yr warranty, real failure 8–15 yrs; Enphase 25-yr, real issues 10–20.

(BACKUP ONLY) Kansas City has taken three of these in sixteen months — and your solar shut off every time. March of last year, seventy-mile-an-hour winds put a hundred ninety thousand Evergy customers in the dark. Last May, forty-two thousand. Six weeks ago, sixty-four thousand. Grid-tied panels produce nothing in an outage — every solar roof in the metro sat dead through all three. A battery keeps your critical systems running, and recharges from the sun through restoration.

Rep layer: Renders ONLY for backup config — and in this market it's THE beat. Anchors (documented, KC-area): March 5, 2025 — ~190,000 peak, 66–70 mph (the marquee); May 19, 2025 — ~42,000+; May 18–19, 2026 — ~64,000 peak (six weeks old — the freshest); May 2024 — ~16,000 residual. The recency does the persuading — understate and let it.

The Solution

A battery is the part of your system that works when the grid doesn't — and we'll be straight about what it doesn't do. On your current rate, it will not lower your Evergy bill; your monthly netting already time-shifts your solar at full value, and our numbers show your with-battery bill equal to today's. What it does: keeps your essentials running through an outage and recharges from the sun daily — and it's the one part of your solar value that doesn't depend on a statute staying written the way it's written today. And if your evening usage fits it, there's one documented rate election where a battery does real bill work — we'll run that on your actual numbers, not a brochure's.

• Self-consumption: "Your netting keeps doing the bill work; the battery covers what netting never could — and we'll check whether the time-of-use election genuinely fits you."
• Backup: "Backup through the next March — and independence from whatever the next session does to the rules."

Monthly Cost Chart and Net Bill Breakdown render here.

Rep layer: THE core cure beat — the honest zero stated inside it before the customer reads it off the screen. The value stack, in order: resilience (three events, freshest six weeks old) + position (statutory terms; the battery reads the same under any rewrite) + takeover — plus the RTOU evaluation OFFERED, never assumed: it's a whole-rate-structure change (all their usage repriced, peak hours expensive), the netting moves to per-period, the peak/off-peak gap is real (~22–28¢ summer), one rider-interaction detail is unconfirmed with Evergy, and the verdict comes from their bill history, not a template. A rep who quotes RTOU savings without running the customer's numbers is guessing on the customer's money.

(BACKUP ONLY) It keeps your home running when the grid goes down. Powers your essentials — refrigerator, medical devices, sump pump, connectivity — through an outage, and recharges from solar daily for as long as restoration takes.

Rep layer: The resilience cure beat. KC seasonal honesty: spring wind and winter ice both hit; winter sun recharges at reduced rates — load management and honest duration expectations.

We take it over. Top Tier becomes the single point of contact for your entire system — a new 10-year workmanship warranty, the 5-year Align Solar Protection contract ($0 deductible, non-transferable), and manufacturer warranty coordination.

Rep layer: Answers the orphaned-system problem. Transfers: workmanship with written consent; Align non-transferable; manufacturer per OEM terms.

Thousands you don't pay. The $11K+ Hidden Costs Avoided bundle — built into the takeover, not sold as extras.

Rep layer: Reframes total cost. "Your payment buys the battery plus warranty plus service plus inverter-replacement coverage — over $11K of value."

And whatever the rules do next, your stored power is yours. Your netting comes from a Missouri statute. Nothing is pending against it — the bills that touched it last session died, and we'll say that plainly. It's also true that statutes are exactly the kind of thing sessions revisit. Power you store and use yourself is the one arrangement that doesn't need the statute's permission.

Rate Justification + Own vs Rent render here.

Rep layer: The independence beat — nothing-pending (reassurance) + statutory-not-contractual (the structural note). 25-yr scenarios: conservative 4%, moderate 6%, aggressive 8% — these describe the rates solar offsets and the stakes of the position; never presented as battery bill savings.

Urgency

The honest clocks — and none of them is a bill number.

The storm clock. Three named events in sixteen months — the freshest six weeks ago. A battery in place before the next one is protection; one ordered after is a backorder behind the whole metro.

Rep layer: THE Evergy urgency — dense and fresh; understate and let the recency work.

What is NOT a clock: net metering — or a savings window. Every Missouri bill that touched net metering last session died, and no docket changes the mechanism. And there's no bill-savings window closing either — on the standard rate there are no battery bill savings, and we've said so from the first minute. The honest urgency here is weather and position, and both are doing fine on their own.

Rep layer: The anti-manufacture rule, doubled: no invented deadline AND no invented savings. If a competitor is running either in this market, the customer should ask what else is invented.

The Close

1. Verify credit + confirm jurisdiction and configuration. Run the credit check; confirm Evergy Metro vs Evergy West by the bill — West is a separate tariff book the tool flags rather than models — and confirm the backup/self-consumption configuration. Walk the customer through the with-battery bill equaling today's bill on the screen, in your own words, before they ask.
2. If the customer fits the RTOU profile, schedule the evaluation. High evening usage and openness to a rate change are the markers — the evaluation runs on their actual bill history, and the answer is allowed to be no.
3. Customer reads and signs the service agreement. Walk through the disclosures honestly — the monthly-netting mechanics, that the battery does not reduce the bill on the standard rate, the excess-credit expiry as a sizing note, the RTOU election as an option with trade-offs where applicable, and that there's no federal credit or Evergy battery program.
4. Complete the Welcome Call. Finalizes the sale and sets expectations for installation.

Standing Rules (Do NOT Violate)

• ❌ NEVER coach reps to disqualify based on home tenure. Resale story is real — not "walk away."
• ❌ NEVER claim "all warranties transfer." Workmanship: with written consent. Align: non-transferable. Manufacturer: per OEM terms.
• ❌ NEVER fabricate inspection findings.
• ❌ NEVER quote a bill-reduction factor as a guarantee.
• ❌ NEVER quote a REP buyback rate as fixed/guaranteed — plan-dependent, confirm the customer's actual plan.
• ❌ 85+ confirmation call required. Customer confirms own finances, no POA, sound mind.
• ❌ Financing ends before age 91. 75 → 15-year max. 80 → 10-year max.
• ❌ Honest cancellation window. Overselling = free customer exit + $1K–$1.5K clawback.
• ❌ Certified before selling.

Go get the sale. A battery is a strong product — clean energy, independence, backup, long-term savings, and in Texas real VPP income. A customer who wants one for any honest reason is a good sale. We never walk away over price or low savings — that's the customer's call. Do right by the customer, protect the company, be honest.

PART B — The Deep Reference

1. Orientation

• Utility: Evergy Missouri Metro (P.S.C. MO No. 7) — investor-owned, MO PSC-regulated, ~600,000 customers, Kansas City metro on the Missouri side. Evergy West (P.S.C. MO No. 1 — St. Joseph and western Missouri, ~300K) is a legally distinct jurisdiction with its own tariff book — flag West customers; never quote Metro numbers.
• Market type: MONTHLY-NETTING / zero battery bill arbitrage on the default rate — within-month kWh netting across all periods; RPKA's energy charge is flat (peak character = a small adjustment rider); monthly excess at avoided fuel cost (~2¢ Metro), 12-month expiry, no cash-out; no cohorts; no programs. One documented advanced lever: the customer-elected RTOU rate (per-period netting; real peak differential) — per-customer evaluation only.
• Default config: backup-capable ($18,500 / $23,942 / ~$228); self-consumption ($17,000 / $22,068 / ~$210).

2. How the Evergy Metro Bill Works

1. Rates (Schedule RPKA "Peak Reward Saver" — the universal default residential rate): customer charge $12.00/mo (eff. 4/21/2025). The energy charge is flat; the plan's peak character comes from a peak-period adjustment rider on the order of ±1¢ — not a true time-of-use price gap.
2. Solar netting (Schedule NM): within a billing month, exports and imports net kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour across all hours. A noon export cancels an evening import at full value automatically.
3. Monthly excess: credited at avoided fuel cost — ~$0.019/kWh Metro (the tool carries the current figure) — expiring at twelve months with no cash-out; the balance dies with the account.
4. What this means for a battery, exactly: on RPKA, storing noon power for evening use changes nothing the month-end total can see (slightly worse after round-trip losses). Bill impact ≈ $0 on the standard setup.
5. The RTOU election: a customer may elect the Residential Time-of-Use rate; on it, netting runs per period, and the published summer peak/off-peak differential is on the order of 22–28¢ — a genuine battery lever, with genuine trade-offs (all usage repriced; peak hours expensive without discipline) and one unconfirmed interaction detail. Per-customer evaluation on actual bill history; never a default quote.
6. Metering/transfer: systems new or expanded on/after 1/1/2025 get dual metering (customer reimburses actual cost per tariff); the interconnection does not auto-transfer at sale — the new owner files a new application (free, ~15 days unmodified).

Why this matters for the pitch: the netting is the customer's friend and we say so — it's also precisely why the battery isn't a bill product on the default rate. The RTOU evaluation is the one honest upside path, and it's earned per customer, not assumed. Everything else is the outage, the position, and the takeover.

3. Net Metering at Evergy — Good Terms, One Real Lever, Stated Exactly

Everything below is pinned to Evergy's filed tariffs and Missouri statute.

• The law (RSMo 386.890 + 20 CSR 4240-20.065): monthly netting; excess credited at "at least equal to the avoided fuel cost"; credits "shall expire without any compensation at the earlier of either twelve months after their issuance or when the customer-generator disconnects service."
• The netting basis (default): month-total kilowatt-hours across all periods — RPKA's flat energy charge means timing carries no price. Battery bill arbitrage on the default rate ≈ 0.
• The RTOU election: available by customer election; netting moves to per-period treatment with a real published peak differential (~22–28¢ summer). The interaction between the netting and the peak-adjustment rider under RTOU is unconfirmed with Evergy — flagged, and part of why the evaluation is per-customer with the answer allowed to be no.
• No cohorts, nothing pending: Missouri never closed anything; the 2025 bills died; no docket changes the mechanism.
• The jurisdiction gate: Metro modeled; West is a separate book ($0.0198 excess credit, $12.90 customer charge, its own rates) — flag, never guess.
• The rep move: "Your netting is genuinely good — within the month, everything cancels at full value, whatever the clock says. That's also why I won't sell you a battery as a bill product on your current rate: the grid's already doing that job. What I will do is two honest things — show you what the battery does that netting never can, starting with three storms in sixteen months; and if your evenings are heavy, run the one rate election where a battery genuinely earns, on your actual bills."
• See the "Net Metering & Grandfathering Status" section for the cited detail; the flag for Evergy Missouri is monthly-netting (favorable within-month terms; zero default battery arbitrage; RTOU election as the documented per-customer lever).

4. Rate Reality — The Backdrop, Not the Battery Case

What drives the Evergy pitch (named, honest):

1. Three storms in sixteen months. 190,000 / 42,000 / 64,000 — the freshest six weeks old; every solar roof dark through all of them.
2. The position. Netting terms in a statute; stored power as the arrangement that needs no one's permission.
3. The honesty itself — with one real door. Opening with the zero is the credibility play; the RTOU evaluation is the genuine upside for the customer whose usage fits it.

Documented vs. speculation (say this right):

• ✅ "Within the month, everything nets at full value across all hours — your netting is genuinely good" (tariff)
• ✅ "On your current rate, a battery doesn't reduce this bill — the netting already time-shifts for free, and the rate's energy charge is flat" (mechanics)
• ✅ "There's one documented path where a battery does real bill work — electing the time-of-use rate — and we evaluate it on your actual usage, because it reprices everything" (the lever, framed as evaluation)
• ✅ "Monthly excess earns about two cents and expires within a year — if you're chronically over-producing, that's an array-sizing conversation" (statute; sizing frame)
• ❌ Any default battery bill-savings claim, spread figure, or per-kWh capture number (the default mechanics make it ~$0)
• ❌ Quoting RTOU savings without the customer's bill history (a whole-rate-structure change with an unconfirmed rider interaction — evaluation only)
• ❌ Quoting Metro numbers to a West customer (separate tariff book — flag, don't guess)
• ❌ Pitching the Thermostat Program as battery income (batteries excluded) or the closed battery pilot (never a customer channel)
• ❌ Any Missouri NEM deadline (nothing is pending)

5. Incentives & Programs

• Evergy battery programs: none. The Thermostat Program ($50 enrollment + $25/yr) is AC/thermostat demand response — batteries excluded; mention only if asked, never as battery income. The Home Battery Storage Pilot was closed, Evergy-owned hardware — never a customer channel. The Prop C-era solar rebate has been $0/W since mid-2020.
• Federal ITC: expired 12/31/2025. Never quote 30%.
• Missouri tax treatment: systems in service before Aug 9, 2022 receive a 5%-of-true-value preferential assessment; new installations carry no property-tax exemption claim (the statutory exemption was held unconstitutional in 2022). Sales tax covers PV system components (RSMo 144.030.2(46)); battery treatment is confirmed at close, never promised.
• The value is resilience + position + the takeover — with the RTOU evaluation as the earned exception.

6. System Rescue Value — The System Takeover

This applies to any customer with existing solar — and it's identical across every Top Tier market. These are takeover facts, not TX-specific.

The Orphaned Solar Customer Problem. Many Texas solar customers installed during the 2019–2024 growth years and now face:

• An original installer that's gone out of business, been acquired, or stopped servicing residential (especially common after the federal tax credit expired Dec 2025)
• A 10-year workmanship warranty that's unenforceable (installer is gone)
• An inverter approaching or past typical failure windows
• No service relationship, and most companies refuse to service systems they didn't install

The Inverter Failure Reality. Inverters are the weakest link. Panels last 25–30 years; the inverter fails much sooner.

• SolarEdge string inverters: 8–15 years (12-yr standard warranty)
• Enphase microinverters: 10–20 years (25-yr warranty)
• Industry-wide: 70–90% of systems experience inverter failure within the panel lifespan
• When it fails on an orphaned system: production stops, bills jump to full retail, most providers won't quote it, out-of-pocket replacement is $3,500–5,000, and the customer is down 4–8 weeks.

What Top Tier's takeover provides (formalized through a Service Warranty Agreement with a brand-new 10-year Limited Workmanship and Roof Penetration Warranty):

• A new 10-year Top Tier workmanship warranty (regardless of system age)
• Manufacturer warranty claim handling (Top Tier chases the claim + labor, not the customer)
• Inverter replacement coverage when it fails within manufacturer warranty (customer pays nothing for the work)
• Single point of contact; monitoring setup help; performance verification at inspection

The $11K System Takeover Bundle (the exact 5-tile bundle on the proposal):

How to use it: "On top of the bill math, you're picking up over $11K of bundled services that aren't sold separately. If your inverter fails in year 12, the warranty handling alone is worth a few hundred; the replacement coordination saves $3–5K; the Align contract is $1,500 you'd otherwise pay. It adds up."

Align Solar Protection — the terms (get these right):

• 5-year term, $0 deductible, insurance-backed by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, non-transferable to subsequent owners.
• Covers: mechanical breakdown of existing PV (panels, inverters/optimizers, racking) — parts, labor, service calls.
• Does NOT cover: the new battery (own warranty), wear-and-tear, weather/hail, pre-existing conditions, roof issues.
• Age limits: panels/microinverters under 15 years; string/central inverters under 7 years. Not every system fully qualifies — disclose at inspection.
• It's ONE of three layers: (1) equipment manufacturer warranties, (2) Top Tier's 10-yr workmanship, (3) the 5-yr Align contract. Never call it "full coverage."
• NEVER say: "Everything's covered" / "never worry again" / "Align is your full coverage" / "you can extend beyond 5 years" / "Align transfers when you sell."

Quantifying the rescue value:

This is independent of bill savings — the rescue alone can be worth $4,000–7,500.

7. Outage Reality — Three Named Events in Sixteen Months

Why outages happen here. Kansas City sits in the wind-and-ice corridor, and the recent record is dense:

• March 5, 2025: ~190,000 Evergy customers out at peak — 66–70 mph straight-line winds, most in the KC area. The marquee.
• May 19, 2025: ~42,000+ out. May 18–19, 2026: ~64,000 peak — six weeks ago at this writing, the freshest anchor in Missouri.
• May 2024: ~16,000 residual — the steady drumbeat under the marquees.
• Spring wind, summer storms, winter ice — the exposure runs most of the calendar, and in a metro restoration, someone's feeder is always last.

What a battery does — and the honest mechanism. Grid-tied solar shuts off automatically in an outage (anti-islanding). A battery with backup keeps essential loads running — refrigerator, medical devices, sump pump, connectivity — and recharges from solar daily through restoration.

How to pitch it honestly: "A hundred ninety thousand Evergy customers went dark in one March storm, and the metro's taken two more hits since — the last one six weeks ago. Every solar roof was off through all of it. The battery is the part of the system built for exactly that — and it's the job we're selling it for."

8. Hidden Costs Avoided / What You Own vs What You Rent

• What you rent: grid dependence the moment the weather wins — three reminders in sixteen months — and netting terms that live in a statute.
• What you own (with the battery): a house that stays on through restoration, and solar value that reads the same under any rule rewrite.
• Hidden costs avoided: the $11K takeover bundle + every restoration's real costs — spoiled food, hotel nights, lost work — the expenses no netting arrangement touches.

9. Battery Products

• Backup config (the point of this market): Tesla Powerwall 3 (13.5 kWh; Redline: $20,500), FranklinWH aPower 2 (15 kWh; Redline: $20,500). Not compatible with HDM.

• Self-consumption config: Enphase IQ 5P (10 kWh; Redline: $15,500 SC / $17,600 BU), SolarEdge Home Battery (9.7 kWh usable; Redline: $14,500 SC / $16,000 BU), SolarEdge Nexis (self-consumption only pending crew backup training; Redline: $15,500 SC).

• Evergy takeaway: size for essential loads through a multi-day event — that's the design basis, because it's the job. On the default rate there is no bill math to size against; for an RTOU-elected customer, sizing to carry the evening peak from stored solar is part of the evaluation. Export configuration earns two expiring cents — backup capability is what the customer is buying. Confirm config and jurisdiction in the tool.

• Financing terms vary by lender — price deals through the proposal tool.

10. Objection Handling

Universal objections (swap in Evergy figures) + Evergy-specific objections.

"Will the battery lower my bill?" (Evergy-specific — THE defining objection; the answer is the pitch)

"On your current rate, no — and I'd rather be the one who tells you. Your monthly netting cancels what you make against what you use at full value, whatever time of day either happens, and the standard rate's energy charge is flat — so storing noon power for the evening changes nothing the meter can see. Anyone quoting you battery bill savings on the standard Evergy setup hasn't read the tariff. Two honest things instead: the battery is the only part of your system that works during an outage — this metro's had three in sixteen months — and if your evenings are heavy, there's one documented rate election where a battery genuinely earns, and we'll run it on your actual bills before promising a dime."

"Tell me about that time-of-use option — how much would I save?" (Evergy-specific — the RTOU discipline answer)

"The honest answer is: it depends on your usage, and I won't quote a number until we've run yours. Here's the shape of it: you can elect Evergy's time-of-use rate, and on that rate your netting works period by period — with a summer peak price twenty-plus cents above off-peak. A battery discharging through that peak does real work. The trade-off is that the election reprices everything — your peak-hour usage gets expensive if the battery and your habits don't cover it — and one detail of how a rider interacts with the netting is something we confirm with Evergy as part of the evaluation. Bring me twelve months of bills and you'll get a real answer, including 'don't do it' if that's what the math says."

"Why is my excess credit so small — and why did some of it disappear?" (Evergy-specific — the sizing answer)

"Monthly leftovers earn Evergy's avoided fuel cost — about two cents — and any credit not used within twelve months expires; that's the statute, not a billing error. Honest guidance: no battery fixes that, because nothing carries April's surplus to July. If you're chronically over-producing, that's an array-sizing conversation, and we'll have it straight — including telling you if the right answer is nothing at all."

"Should I get the battery before net metering changes?" (Evergy-specific — the position answer, no manufactured deadline)

"Nothing is pending — the bills that touched net metering last session died, and I won't invent a deadline. The honest structural point: your terms come from a state statute, and statutes are what sessions revisit. I can't tell you if or when that happens. I can tell you that power you store and use yourself reads the same under any version — and that the battery's first job, the outage, doesn't wait on any of it. Three storms in sixteen months didn't check the statute first."

"Why is the loan more than the system price?"

"The cash price is $17,000–18,500 depending on config. Service Finance adds dealer fees bringing the financed amount to about $22,068–23,942. Cash or a HELOC is cheaper if that's an option. There's no Evergy rebate and the federal credit expired — and I've told you straight this won't cut your bill on the standard rate. What the payment buys is the backup, the position, and the takeover — over $11K of the total is warranty, service, and inverter coverage."

11. DO SAY / NEVER SAY

12. Required Disclosures

1. ☐ Evergy Missouri nets solar production against usage monthly in kilowatt-hours across all periods; on the standard residential rate a battery does not reduce the monthly bill, and projections show the with-battery bill equal to the current bill. The battery's value is backup power, position, and the system takeover.
2. ☐ Monthly net-excess generation is credited at Evergy's avoided fuel cost (~$0.019/kWh Metro; current figure verified in the tool), with credits expiring at twelve months, no cash-out, and forfeiture at account closure; over-production is a system-sizing consideration a battery does not address.
3. ☐ Evergy's Residential Time-of-Use rate may be elected by the customer, under which netting applies per period and a battery may provide bill value; any such election is evaluated individually against the customer's actual usage history, involves repricing of all usage, includes tariff-interaction details confirmed with Evergy during evaluation, and no time-of-use savings are represented in this proposal.
4. ☐ This proposal models the Evergy Metro jurisdiction; Evergy West is a separate tariff jurisdiction with different rates, and West customers are flagged for jurisdiction-correct figures before commitment.
5. ☐ No Missouri proceeding or enacted legislation changes residential net metering as of this writing; the interconnection does not transfer automatically at property sale (the new owner files a new application).
6. ☐ Evergy offers no battery rebate, VPP, or battery-eligible demand-response program; no program income is quoted. No federal ITC after 12/31/2025. Missouri's sales-tax exemption covers PV system components; battery treatment is confirmed at close. No property-tax exemption applies to new installations.
7. ☐ Align Solar Protection is non-transferable; workmanship warranty transfer requires written consent; manufacturer warranties transfer per OEM terms. Align coverage is contingent on inspection + age limits (panels <15 yr, inverters <7 yr).
8. ☐ Backup duration depends on system sizing and load; whole-home coverage through a multi-day outage is not implied. Pricing confirmed in the tool before commitment.

13. Quick-Reference Numbers (dated — confirm before quoting)

• Netting: monthly kWh across ALL periods — a noon export cancels an evening import automatically
• BATTERY BILL IMPACT (default rate): ≈ $0 — say it first; the tool shows with-battery bill = current bill by design
• Default rate: RPKA "Peak Reward Saver" — FLAT energy charge; peak character = adjustment rider ~±1¢ (no real gap) | Customer charge: $12.00/mo (Metro)
• THE ADVANCED LEVER: customer-elected RTOU — per-period netting; summer peak differential ~22–28¢; rider interaction UNCONFIRMED; per-customer evaluation on 12 months of bills; NEVER a default quote
• Monthly excess: avoided fuel cost ~$0.019 Metro (confirm in tool); 12-month expiry; no cash-out; a SIZING note, never a battery job
• Jurisdiction: Metro modeled (~600K, KC); West = separate book ($0.0198 / $12.90) — FLAG, never quote
• Cohorts: none | Pending: nothing (the 2025 bills died; no docket) | Transfer at sale: new-owner application (free, ~15 days unmodified)
• Programs: none for batteries (thermostat DR excludes them; battery pilot closed/Evergy-owned; Prop C rebate $0 since 2020) | Federal ITC: expired 12/31/2025 | Taxes: sales = PV components (battery at close); property = no exemption for new installs
• Interconnection: dual meters for new/expanded ≥1/1/2025 (actual cost); insurance none ≤10 kW / $100K over; anti-islanding parallel-blocking required
• Inverter replacement out-of-pocket: $3,500–5,000 | Takeover bundle: ~$11,800
• Default config: backup $18,500 / self-consumption $17,000
• Storm anchors: Mar 5, 2025 — ~190K peak (marquee); May 19, 2025 — ~42K+; May 18–19, 2026 — ~64K peak (freshest); May 2024 — ~16K

14. Sell Hard, Sell Honest — the standing rules

• Open with the zero. "On your current rate, the battery won't cut this bill" is the strongest sentence in this market — checkable, disarming, and no competitor will say it.
• The netting is the customer's friend — praise it, then name what it can't do.
• The RTOU lever is earned, never assumed — twelve months of bills, the trade-offs on the table, the rider question confirmed with Evergy, and "don't do it" as an allowed verdict. A rep who quotes RTOU savings from a template is guessing with the customer's money.
• Excess = sizing, always — two expiring cents is an array conversation, and sometimes the honest answer is "you don't need anything from us."
• Metro vs West is a hard gate — separate tariff books; West gets flagged, never guessed.
• Three storms in sixteen months does the persuading — understate and let the recency work.
• Never quote the federal ITC (expired). Never pitch the thermostat program or the closed pilot as battery income.