Ameren has officially taken ownership of its largest solar facility yet. The project near Beardstown, Illinois, is one of three big solar projects the company is adding in 2024.
The Cass County Renewable Energy Center will come online later this year and produce 150 megawatts of power, enough to power about 27,500 homes annually, according to Savion LLC, the company Ameren bought the facility from.
This solar energy will be part of Ameren’s Renewable Solutions program, which provides renewable energy to businesses that pay a premium to reach their environmental goals. Companies including Walmart, World Wide Technologies, SSM Health and Mastercard currently use the program.
“Those industrial customers that are part of Renewable Solutions help offset some of the costs for renewables and getting that benefit to everybody,” said Scott Wibbenmeyer, Ameren’s senior director of renewable business development.
The Cass County facility will double the size of the Renewable Solutions program. The demand for the program shows that businesses are making decisions based on what energy is available, said James Owen, executive director of Renew Missouri, which advocates for renewables in the state.
“They've got shareholders that are expecting them to be run off sustainable energy, off clean energy,” Owen said. “They're going to go where that's available, and either states and utilities are going to provide that and make that accessible, or they're not. And if they don't, those businesses are going to go elsewhere.”
But Owen worries the program may also send the message that renewables are only available for big companies with a lot of money. He hopes upcoming investments will counter that narrative and pointed to the recent announcement that Missouri will receive $156 million for residential solar for low-income customers, through an Inflation Reduction Act program.
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Construction on the Cass County project is expected to be completed later this year. Ameren is also in the process of adding two other large solar facilities to its portfolio — Huck Finn is a 200-megawatt facility in Northeast Missouri, and Boomtown is a 150-megawatt facility in southern Illinois. Both are expected to start up this year.
These new solar projects will dramatically increase Ameren’s renewable energy production but still account for a relatively small portion of the utility’s overall generation, more than half of which currently comes from coal.
Ameren has set a goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. Its plan to reach net-zero includes natural gas, a fossil fuel that is cleaner than coal but still emits greenhouse gasses. The company says it will make up for those emissions with carbon capture or offsets, according to its latest integrated resource plan.
Earlier this year, Ameren announced plans to build a new natural gas plant in St. Louis County, which company representatives said will be used to smooth out fluctuations in renewable energy.
“Think of renewables as there to supply that low-cost energy, and then we'll have gas in the background to really make sure that reliability is there as an insurance plan,” Wibbenmeyer said.
Owen doesn’t buy that line of reasoning.
“It feels backwards to me because they haven't built that renewable energy infrastructure yet, but they're building this gas plant to say that they're going to be supplementing it,” Owen said.
As part of its plan, Ameren is expecting to invest in battery storage. Wibbenmeyer said the company is looking for the right location to build. He said the company also wants to increase wind generation in the coming years.
In all, Ameren has committed to solar projects totaling 900 megawatts. It has a goal of adding 1800 megawatts by 2030, which would power about 30% of the company’s total load, Wibbenmeyer said.
Ameren is also closing its coal-fired power plant, Rush Island, later this year. A court order gave the company the option to either close the plant or install pollution controls. Ameren chose to shutter the plant.
