Smart Energy Plan upgrades helped limit severe weather impacts and speed restoration during historic 2025 storm season
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Ameren Missouri, a subsidiary of Ameren Corporation (NYSE: AEE), has filed its updated Smart Energy Plan with the Missouri Public Service Commission. The filing highlights how Missourians are benefiting from the company's investments in customer reliability and outlines a five-year strategy to advance a stronger, more resilient electric grid. In 2025, upgrades deployed through the Smart Energy Plan automatically prevented 160,000 customer outages during major storms.
"Our strategic grid upgrades through the Smart Energy Plan are focused on delivering enhanced reliability and value for customers," said Michael Moehn, group president, Ameren Utilities of Ameren Corporation. "We're committed to making investments that bolster the grid and protect families and businesses from outages."
Critical Local Projects Benefit Customers
The Smart Energy Plan provides direct customer benefits by enabling Ameren Missouri to upgrade aging foundational grid infrastructure, including poles, wires and substations. These improvements support greater resilience against extreme weather and faster restoration during outages.
"The benefits of these upgrades can be immediate and impactful, as we saw during major storm events in 2025," said Tim Lafser, senior vice president, energy delivery and operations technical services at Ameren Missouri. "For example, when a dozen tornados touched down in our region on March 14, our investments automatically prevented 59,000 outages while our crews worked tirelessly to restore all affected customers."
Smart Energy Plan investments through 2025 include:
- Outage Prevention: More than 2,000 smart switches now monitor the grid 24/7, automatically isolating outages and rerouting power. These devices have prevented more than 330,000 customer outages over the past five years.
- Storm Hardening: Ameren Missouri added 850 composite poles in 2025. These are stronger than wooden poles and help speed restoration by preventing cascading damage to overhead lines. The company has storm-hardened more than 300 miles of power lines across Missouri since the start of the Smart Energy Plan.
- Substation Upgrades: Nearly 150 substations have been modernized through the Smart Energy Plan, including upgrades to some of the company's oldest equipment to improve reliability and increase capacity.
Powering Reliability
Ameren Missouri is also investing in a reliable and balanced mix of energy resources to power needs of all our customers now and in the future. This approach includes building new generation facilities and upgrading existing assets.
"Developing a diverse portfolio of dependable, on-demand power along with lowest-cost renewables and battery storage is critical to meeting our customers' needs," said Ajay Arora, senior vice president and chief development officer for Ameren Missouri. "This approach provides excellent value for our customers and ensures reliability, regardless of weather conditions or time of day."
In 2025, the company carried out more than 100 projects to support upgrades to its existing generation fleet. Investments in reliable generation through the Smart Energy Plan include:
- Construction began at the site of Castle Bluff Energy Center, a quick-start, 800-megawatt (MW) natural gas facility designed to support the grid during times of high demand or when renewable assets are unavailable.
- Added 50 MW of new power to the grid with the commissioning of the Vandalia Renewable Energy Center. An additional 350 MW of generation capacity is expected to be placed in service for the benefit of customers in 2026.
- Replacement of two 90-year-old turbines at Osage Energy Center to improve the efficiency of hydroelectric generation at Bagnell Dam.
Driving Economic Growth
Reliable, resilient infrastructure is an essential need for businesses considering moving to or expanding in Missouri. By supporting reliability upgrades for all customers, the Smart Energy Plan is also fostering ideal conditions for businesses to thrive in the Show-Me State.
In 2025, 35 businesses announced plans to move to or expand in our service territory, resulting in more than $1.5 billion in planned capital investment and creating more than 2,200 new Missouri jobs.
Some of those businesses include:
- Amazon, one of the world's largest retail companies, opened a new last-mile delivery station in Scott City, Missouri. This $15 million investment will create 70 new jobs for the area. Smart Energy Plan upgrades in the area are supporting this new facility and greater reliability for 4,500 other residents and businesses in the Scott City area.
- WEG Transformers USA, a leading producer of transformers, is expanding in Washington, Missouri, investing $77 million and creating 50 new jobs. The company is a major supplier of power transformers for Smart Energy Plan projects.
- IKO, a global leader in roofing and waterproofing manufacturing, is investing more than $120 million in a new facility and creating more than 50 new jobs in Bismarck, Missouri.
Ameren is working to keep costs as low as possible, which is why Ameren Missouri's rates are consistently among the lowest in the nation and remain approximately 27% below Midwest and national averages, according to the latest analysis from the Edison Electric Institute.
About Ameren Missouri
Ameren Missouri has been providing electric and gas service for more than 100 years, and the company's electric rates are among the lowest in the nation. Ameren Missouri's mission is to power the quality of life for its approximately 1.3 million electric and 135,000 natural gas customers in central and eastern Missouri. The company's service area covers approximately 60 counties and more than 500 communities, including the greater St. Louis area. For more information, visit Ameren.com/Missouri or follow us at @AmerenMissouri or Facebook.com/AmerenMissouri.
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SOURCE Ameren Missouri
