Ameren is planning to build its largest solar facility yet in mid-Missouri, in part to power data centers.
The solar field would be constructed next to the Callaway nuclear plant in Callaway County. It would be a 250-megawatt center, which could power about 44,000 homes.
That would make it Ameren’s largest solar facility. Last year, the utility brought three new solar facilities online, which are producing 500MW together.
In filings to Missouri regulators, an Ameren official said the new facility is needed to meet expected demand from large-load customers, like data centers. The company says it has received interest from data centers that would potentially need 15GW of new electricity.
“While it is very likely the case that not all of this load will in fact locate and materialize in Ameren Missouri's service territory, it is easy to see that even if only 5% of this load does materialize, we need additional and timely dispatchable and renewable generation to provide the energy to serve it,” wrote Ajay Arora, Ameren’s senior vice president and chief development officer.
Arora said these data centers present a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for Ameren and Missouri, but the company will need to build power plants to take advantage of it.
The company also said this solar facility is needed to meet electricity growth from residential, commercial and industrial customers.
Ameren representatives have similarly pointed to prospective data center growth in recent requests to build two natural gas plants.
In its application to build an 800MW natural gas plant at the site of the former Castle Bluff coal plant, Ameren Director of Corporate Analysis Matt Michels wrote, “the Project will help to mitigate other key risks such as the recent surge in potential large load additions (e.g., data centers, manufacturing).”
Michels also listed two specific data centers whose locations, capacity and names were redacted in the June 2024 document. One was projected to begin construction in July and come online in December. For the other, Michels said in the filing that details of the agreement were still being finalized.
In the application to build the Big Hollow Energy Center, which is 800MW of natural gas and 400MW of battery storage, Arora said the company expects to add at least 500MW of new load within the next few years and even more after that.
“The Big Hollow Projects are needed to provide reliable service to all of our customers, due to the likelihood that we will add customers with significant new large loads in just the next few years,” Arora said.
Ameren has requested approval to build the Callaway County solar facility from Missouri’s Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities.
The land is already owned by Ameren. The utility said it hopes to begin construction next year and have the project serving customers by 2028.
