St. Charles Mayor Patricia York, St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann, and Thomas R. Voss, president and chief executive officer of AmerenUE today toured the site of UE’s largest reliability-improvement project to-date for Project Power On. AmerenUE, a utility operating company of Ameren Corporation (NYSE:AEE), is putting overhead power circuits underground along Duchesne Drive from Elm Street to Droste Road as part of its aggressive effort to improve reliability and service for customers throughout its service area. This $1.1 million project is designed to improve electric service for 1,478 customers and increase reliability during severe weather.
Project Power On is UE’s $1 billion three-year effort to significantly upgrade its delivery system and enhance the environmental performance of its power plants. All St. Charles customers directly affected by this work have been contacted by UE.
“This area of St. Charles has been particularly affected during inclement weather,” said Mayor York. “We formed a task force of community members to take a look at this issue and brought some suggestions to AmerenUE. Throughout this process we have been able to work closely with UE officials and the result is the project you see here today.”
AmerenUE’s Chief Executive Officer and President Thomas R. Voss said, “We’ve reached out across Missouri to listen to our customers, respond to their needs and deliver results. We are eager to replicate this collaborative approach throughout our service area.”
“We are very pleased to see this project happening,” said County Executive Ehlmann. “We believe that this is just the beginning for St. Charles County. We think Ameren’s investment will go a long way to providing greater reliability for the customers of St. Charles County.”
Under Project Power On, UE is investing $300 million to underground circuits most susceptible to outages and more than $200 million on additional tree-trimming and system inspection and maintenance. Some 900 “undergrounding” projects are being planned across Missouri as part of this program.
Through Power On, UE also is spending $500 million to install controls to improve the environmental performance of its power plants, which will enable UE to meet or exceed federal standards.
“With the severe weather patterns of the past few years, we are working even harder to ensure reliability for our customers,” said Voss. “We’ve been working closely with community officials and leaders across our system to determine the best approach for improving our delivery system, while ensuring that we meet the growing demand for energy.
“Though we serve a wide area, we know that power delivery matters on a customer-by-customer basis,” Voss said. “We applaud Mayor York and County Executive Ehlmann for bringing the community together and working with us to better serve our customers, their constituents. It’s been a great partnership.”
With 1.2 million customers, AmerenUE is Missouri’s largest electric company and third largest provider of natural gas. Ameren, through its operating companies, serves 2.4 million electric and 1 million natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area of Illinois and Missouri.
Additional information is available at www.ameren.com/poweron.
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CONTACT: Lori Light , of Ameren, 314.554.2681