Opinion | Behrens: Ameren’s ‘Cheap’ Energy Keeps Getting Expensive

It’s déjà vu all over again.

For the second time in three years, Ameren Missouri is coming, hat in hand, to struggling ratepayers. This time, the company is seeking a $343 million-dollar electric bill increase from the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC).  The PSC says the increase would mean about $13 more per month for the average residential customer. 

Ameren is starting to look less like a disciplined utility and more like a spoiled trust-fund child. It keeps making expensive decisions and acting like there is a bottomless fund available when the bill comes due. 

In 2024, Ameren asked and received from the PSC a major electric rate increase. The company says this latest request is about storm hardening, grid upgrades and new generation. That sounds responsible until you look at what Ameren has been doing with its decisions. 

These bill hiking requests come as Ameren continues charging ahead with expensive energy investments and moving away from coal. It retired the Meramec Energy Center at the end of 2022. Rush Island, another coal plant, was disconnected from the grid and retired in October 2024. Ameren’s own planning documents call for retiring all coal-fired generation by the end of 2042. 

At the same time, Ameren is embracing the failed road of solar and wind. In 2024, Ameren announced 500 megawatts of new solar generation. Then, it received approval for what it called its “largest-ever solar investment,” about 400 more megawatts of solar. Its 2025 plan calls for thousands of megawatts of solar and wind. 

During a 2025 public hearing, I asked Ameren representatives why the company was moving forward with more expensive wind and solar. They told me it was the cheapest form of energy. Yet the bills keep rising. 

Don’t take my word for it.  Ameren has said that when solar energy “predictably rises and then falls every day,” it is vital to have its Castle Bluff natural gas plant as backup. Translation: Ameren is building intermittent, weather-dependent power, then building backup power for it and charging customers to pay for both.  

Question: When exactly does the “cheap” part of the cheapest energy begin?

To be fair. If this new rate increase is approved, Ameren is not the only guilty party. The Missouri Public Service Commission will own the “shame on me” part of being fooled twice.

The PSC is charged with protecting the public interest. Yet, if the PSC’s approach to transparency is any indication, working families should be worried.

After the PSC approved Ameren’s last rate increase, I filed a Freedom of Information request about Ameren’s solar claims The response was not exactly a profile in open government. 

According to the PSC, some reports may exist, but a “cursory look” showed they were confidential. The commission also said staff likely had responsive records, but before gathering them, it wanted to know whether I would pay the $23.59 hourly cost of research. Charging for records is their right under Missouri state law, but making public information more freely available would certainly help.

For those keeping score, Ameren asks the public to pay more for electricity, but when the public asks whether Ameren’s renewable promises are delivering, the answer is essentially, “We may have records, but you’ll have to pay us again to look for them.” You first pay for the solar and wind then you have to pay to see if they’re working.

What this case really needs is adults in the room.

Ameren should provide reliable power at the lowest reasonable cost. That should be the standard. Not the greenest press release. Not a promise that this rate increase will finally be the one that makes “cheap” renewables cheap.

Missouri is a practical state. We believe in work, responsibility and paying the bills. If a child keeps making bad decisions eventually an adult has to say enough. The same should be true for Ameren.

If Missouri ratepayers keep footing the bill for Ameren’s bad energy behavior, the blame should fall on the adults as much as the spoiled child.

Larry Behrens

A Missouri resident, Larry Behrens is an energy expert and the Communications Director for Power The Future. He is also author of the book “Power Restored: President Trump’s First Year and the Revival of American Energy Leadership.” You can follow him on X/Twitter @larrybehrens.