What happened in this Energy story?

Ameren Missouri filed a 20-year integrated resource plan that would triple its reliance on natural gas to 60% of its mix by 2045 while retiring all coal, driven by surging data-center demand that is reshaping the utility's load forecasts.

What is a key fact in this story? (1)

**Ameren Missouri** filed a 20-year integrated resource plan with the Missouri PSC that would grow natural gas from roughly 5% to 60% of its resource mix by 2045 while retiring all coal-fired capacity, including the Sioux Energy Center by end of 2035 and all four Labadie Energy Center units by end of 2042.

What is a key fact in this story? (2)

**The plan** adds 10.6 GW of new gas — split across 6,300 MW of combined-cycle units (by 2031, 2035, and 2042) and 4,300 MW of simple-cycle peaking capacity (by 2029 and after 2040) — alongside 3.6 GW of solar, 1.5 GW of wind, 2.4 GW of battery storage, 1,200 MW of new nuclear, and 500 MW of natural gas fuel cells.

Ameren Missouri files 20-year plan with 10.6 GW of gas additions — SkimNews

By Utility Dive · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-09-30

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Ameren Missouri filed a 20-year integrated resource plan with the Missouri PSC that would grow natural gas from roughly 5% to 60% of its resource mix by 2045 while retiring all coal-fired capacity, including the Sioux Energy Center by end of 2035 and all four Labadie Energy Center units by end of 2042.
The plan adds 10.6 GW of new gas — split across 6,300 MW of combined-cycle units (by 2031, 2035, and 2042) and 4,300 MW of simple-cycle peaking capacity (by 2029 and after 2040) — alongside 3.6 GW of solar, 1.5 GW of wind, 2.4 GW of battery storage, 1,200 MW of new nuclear, and 500 MW of natural gas fuel cells.
Ameren attributes the buildout to data-center demand, projecting 5–6% annual sales growth and 60% growth in base customer deliveries from 2027 to 2030; it has committed to serve 2.8 GW of large-load demand by 2030, nearly double its 2025 expectation, with large-load deliveries forecast to rise from 1,400 GWh in 2027 to 44,676 GWh by 2046.
Ameren is also considering advanced reactors and small modular reactors for the 1,200 MW nuclear addition planned by 2040 and will seek a license extension for the Callaway nuclear plant beyond 2044, though no technology or location has been selected.
The plan retains options to extend the lives of the Labadie and Sioux coal plants — a tension environmental advocates flagged, with Sierra Club strategist Jenn DeRose calling it a 'pollution-heavy plan' that still 'digs' despite Ameren's own acknowledgment that extreme weather events are increasing.
Ameren cited uncertainty from Trump administration rollbacks of greenhouse gas and other coal/gas regulations as a factor requiring 'good faith assumptions' in the filing, and separately filed a $343 million rate increase in June that could raise residential monthly bills by roughly 10%.

Why it matters: Ameren is building its next two decades around a near-tripling of gas capacity to serve a data-center load that could grow more than 30-fold, and the plan's built-in option to keep Labadie and Sioux coal plants running means the 2045 zero-coal target is contingent, not committed — a $343 million rate-hike request is already in front of the same Missouri PSC reviewing this IRP.