Following more than a month of successful testing, the O’Fallon Renewable Energy Center, Ameren Missouri’s first solar center and the largest investor-owned utility scale solar facility in Missouri, is online.
The center features more than 19,000 solar panels covering more than 19 acres and generates nearly 6 MW of electricity to Ameren Missouri’s grid.
Ameren Missouri plans to significantly expand its renewable energy generation portfolio. The company’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) calls for construction of a second solar energy center in 2016 that would be the largest in the state. Also under the IRP, Ameren Missouri will add renewable generation using wind power, hydroelectric and landfill gas. The IRP was filed earlier this year with the Missouri Public Service Commission.
The company’s first hydroelectric energy center, the Keokuk Energy Center, opened in 1913 and continues to supply customers with renewable energy. In 2012, the company opened the Maryland Heights Renewable Energy Center, one of the largest facilities in the nation turning landfill gas into energy.