Ameren Missouri has announced that they’ve closed on the acquisition of its second wind energy center, a 300-megawatt (MW) project in northwest Missouri’s Atchison County.
Ameren Missouri has
closed on the acquisition of its second wind energy center, a project in northwest Missouri’s Atchison County (photo courtesy of Ameren Missouri)
St. Louis-based Ameren made the announcement on Thursday, saying that renewable energy from the facility is reaching customers, as construction continues on some other project turbines.
About 100 MW are already in service, and Ameren Missouri expects an additional 50 to 75 MW by the end of March with more becoming operational this year.
Ameren says the new Atchison Renewable Energy Center and the separate High Prairie Renewable Energy Center in northeast Missouri will add 700 MW of in-state wind generation to the grid. The company says total investment in the two projects is about $1.1 billion.
The High Prairie facility is near Kirksville.
“Ameren Missouri is taking major steps forward in our transformation to clean energy, with the addition of these two large facilities. We’re planning for the long term with deep carbon reductions to achieve our goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” Ameren Missouri President Marty Lyons says, in a written statement.
He says Ameren will invest about $4.5 billion in 3,100 MW of renewable generation by 2030, including Atchison and High Prairie.
Ameren says part of the Atchison Renewable Energy wind project is being built by Invenergy.
Atchison County is in far northwest Missouri, near the Nebraska border. It’s a rural county, with some of the most productive farmland in the state. This is the fourth utility-scale wind energy facility in Atchison County, which will soon have a combined wind generation capacity of 800 MW, more than any of Missouri’s 114 counties.
There are several other wind farms in northwest Missouri.
Ameren also emphasizes it believes in supporting communities where it operates. They’re donating to the re-opened Tarkio Technology Institute, to support its wind energy technician training program.
The former Tarkio College closed in 1992, after more than 100 years as a four-year liberal arts school. It reopened in January 2020 and is focusing on three fields: wind energy, plumbing and welding.
Ameren Missouri has 1.2 million electric and 132,000 natural gas customers in Missouri. The utility serves the St. Louis region, southeast, northeast and mid-Missouri. It also serves part of northwest Missouri.
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