Western Resources 2000 Annual Report

Western Resources (NYSE: WR) www.wr.com

WESTAR WIND
Westar Wind celebrated its first birthday in May 2000. To celebrate its birthday, we made a $5,000 contribution in customers’ names to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks to develop the Milford wetlands project, for which the Western Resources’ Green Team also volunteers. “It's evident from their support of Westar Wind that Kansans display a commitment to preserving and protecting the environment,” said Les Evans, senior manager, generation strategy. Also in 2000, Western Resources was one of six companies to receive the World Safety Organization Concerned Company/ Corporation Award for its Westar Wind renewable energy initiative. Two Westar Wind turbines, located near the company’s Jeffrey Energy Center in northeast Kansas, provide a renewable energy option for our electric customers.

ELECTRICITY – KGE AND KPL

These two regulated electric utilities produce and sell retail electricity in Kansas and wholesale electricity nationwide with generating capacity of 5,604 megawatts. The utilities operate more than 6,300 miles of transmission lines, with 26 interconnects. Currently the companies serve about 636,000 customers in Kansas.

We completed our search for a strategic partner for this segment by formulating an agreement to join our electric businesses with those of Public Service Company of New Mexico. We placed 148 megawatts of new generating capacity into production and sold more than 25 million megawatthours of electricity. www.wr.com/energy_services.html

INVESTMENTS – WESTAR INDUSTRIES

MONITORED SERVICES INVESTMENTS

	Protection One (NYSE: POI), including PowerCall and Network Multifamily Protection One Europe Guardian International (OTC: GIIS), including Mutual Central Alarm Services and Gibraltar Security Alarms These companies serve more than 1.5 million customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Western Europe. Westar Industries owns 85% of Protection One. Protection One’s cash flow increased about 8% in 2000. Protection One acquired PowerCall Security, consolidated its customer service and administrative functions and strengthened its internal sales and marketing programs. www.protectionone.com Westar owns 100% of Protection One Europe. Westar purchased Protection One Europe from Protection One in February 2000. Sales totaled $106 million and customers rose to 133,000. Westar owns about 29% of Guardian International. Sales were about $18.3 million for 2000, and cash flow grew 9%. Guardian serves about 26,700 customers, primarily in Florida and New York City. www.guardianinternational.com

ONEOK (NYSE: OKE)

	ONEOK serves about 1.4 million natural gas distribution customers in Kansas and Oklahoma. ONEOK’s unregulated operations include interests in 24 natural gas processing plants and related gathering systems, marketing operations in 28 states and transportation pipelines and storage facilities in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Earnings for this company were up 42% in 2000. Growth through acquisitions of unregulated assets, valued at more than $850 million, were key to this performance. Westar Industries received about $33 million in dividends from this investment, and our 45% ownership stake appreciated about 90% to more than $1 billion at year end. www.oneok.com

WESTAR COMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER INVESTMENTS

	A wholly owned subsidiary, Westar Communications provides Kansans with wireless communication services and accessories. Westar Communications grew to 9,069 paging customers in 2000. www.wr.com/paging_services.html We sold much of our unregulated investment portfolio in 2000 and gains on the sale of our interests in Hanover Compressor Company, Paradigm Direct and other holdings contributed approximately $1.06 per share to earnings. Year-end market value of our investments, excluding ONEOK, was about $137 million. A rights offering for Westar Industries is expected to be completed in 2001. Westar Industries holds the company’s investments in Protection One, Protection One Europe, ONEOK, unregulated international generation interests and an investment in the utility to be created by the merger of the electric businesses of PNM, KGE and KPL.

* Line of business measures are shown at 100%, i.e., monitored services and natural gas numbers reflect total company numbers, even though Western Resources owns only 85% and 45%, respectively, of those companies.