Ameren Missouri plans to acquire its largest-ever solar facility to power thousands of homes on Ralls County border

ST. LOUIS — Ameren Missouri has agreed to buy the 200 megawatt Huck Finn solar project in Central Missouri under a build-transfer agreement with EDF Renewables. Planned to be built on the border of Missouri’s Audrain and Ralls counties, Huck Finn will have the capacity to power nearly 40,000 homes in the region.

The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. more than 250 construction jobs are expected to be created.

The project would be Ameren Missouri’s largest acquisition to date. It could begin generating clean energy as soon as 2024 subject to the ‘timely’ receipt of regulatory approvals.

“Developing Huck Finn is good for all of our customers because it provides clean electricity, creates economic opportunity and injects millions of dollars into the community over the life of the project, which will have widespread additional benefits,” Mark Birk, chairman and president of Ameren Missouri, said in a press release.

The announcement comes just days after Ameren Missouri updated its comprehensive plan to safeguard long-term energy reliability and resiliency for Missourians, a plan that also accelerates Ameren’s companywide net-zero carbon emissions goal to 2045, five years sooner than previously planned.

“We’re focused on the two items customers say are most important to them: reliability and affordability,” Birk said. “The thoughtfully planned additions of renewable generation over time keeps the grid reliable and resilient while also managing costs.”

Huck Finn is designed to generate more than 25 times the amount of energy of Missouri’s largest existing solar facility. It is the latest project to be part of Ameren Missouri’s planned addition of 2,800 megawatts in new, clean renewable generation by 2030 and the ninth solar facility that the company has announced or put in service since 2019.

Terms of the agreement between Ameren Missouri and EDF were not released.