The total return on Ameren's stock over the past 12 months is 12.7%, outpacing the 8.4% for the S&P 500 Utilities Sector .SPLRCU, as investors anticipate strong earnings growth over the next decade.
"Ameren anticipates more than $70 billion of additional investment opportunities over the next 10 years, providing a long runway of growth," Morningstar analyst Andrew Bischof wrote this week in a research note.
"The most attractive opportunities are supporting data center development in Illinois and Missouri, new generation in Missouri, modernizing the grid in Illinois and Missouri, and transmission expansion across the Midcontinent electric grid," Bischof said.
Ameren outlines additional capacity plans
Ameren executives say the utility also will build capacity by enhancing existing power sources, developing solar and battery energy storage sites and purchasing power from the regional grid.
Ameren's service area falls within the Midcontinent ISO, which manages the flow of electricity for a territory that includes all or part of 15 U.S. states in the Midwest and South.
Ameren says new gas plant still leaves a capacity gap
Ameren's planned mega gas plant for the Midwest will still leave the utility short of the power and reserves needed to meet surging data center demand, the company's own analysis showed ahead of a key approval process next month.
The projected shortfall highlights mounting strain on U.S. power grids as data center demand grows faster than the generation and transmission capacity needed to support it.
St. Louis-based Ameren's urgency for the project is acute after signing contracts this year to provide electricity to data centers in development by Amazon AMZN.O and Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O in rural Missouri.
Ameren AEE.N says the 2,100-megawatt West Alton Energy Center is necessary, but would not fully restore the reserve cushion needed to meet projected demand. The project is planned for a site next to a coal plant on the banks of the Mississippi River about 28 miles (45 km) northwest of St. Louis.
Company analysis shows winter shortfalls in 2032 and 2033
"The company's resource capacity still falls well short of the total demand" and planned reserve margin, Ameren Director of Corporate Analysis Matt Michels said in July 24 testimony filed with the Missouri Public Service Commission.
An August 20 prehearing conference will kick off the regulatory process for Ameren to obtain approval to construct the power plant.
Ameren estimates the plant would come online in late 2031. But Ameren's capacity shortfall in the winter of 2032, for example, would equal about 1,500 MW and grow to about 2,300 MW the following year, Michels said in his testimony.
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