In opposition to Ameren Missouri’s proposed electric rate increase, State Representative Brad Christ — a Republican who represents Missouri House District 96, encompassing Sunset Hills, Crestwood, Fenton, Sappington and Oakland — has filed comments with the Missouri Public Service Commission, asking it to examine the costs associated with data centers and other large users of electricity. He argues that Missouri’s residential customers should not be held responsible for the growing costs tied to the growing demand for electricity.
Ameren Missouri filed a rate case with the Missouri Public Service Commission in June, seeking approximately $343 million in additional annual electric base-rate revenue. The requested proposal would raise electric rates by approximately 10% — adding an estimated $13 a month, totaling approximately $156 a year — to the average residential customer’s bill. This request, if approved, would be Ameren’s third rate increase in five years; a 12% increase took effect in June 2025.
According to Christ, Ameren projects significant growth in electricity demand, with electricity sales potentially increasing by more than 60% over the next five years, due largely to new large-load customers — those with 75 megawatts or more of expected monthly peak power demand, such as data centers and advanced manufacturing businesses.
“Data centers can bring investment and jobs to Missouri, but the families already living here shouldn’t get stuck with their electric bill,” Christ stated in a press release. “The people creating these massive new demands on the electric system should pay their share, and I’m asking the (Missouri Public Service) Commission to settle this matter now before the plants are built, not after.”
Ameren’s testimony in the rate case identifies approximately $2.8 million in costs associated with serving large-load customers, while projecting approximately $13.4 million in annual revenue from the same group. Based on those projections, large-load customers would generate over $10 million more in annual revenue than the costs attributed to serving them, leading to an estimated $5.2 million annual benefit for residential customers. Christ believes these projections must be verified independently, asking regulators to take a closer look before approving any increase.
In reference to Ameren’s proposed rate increase, Christ has brought up Senate Bill 4, signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe in April 2025, which made several changes to Missouri’s utility laws addressing electric rates, infrastructure investment and consumer protections, establishing requirements intended to ensure those customers pay a share of the costs associated with serving their substantial new electricity demands.
As of The Call’s press time, the Public Service Commission is still reviewing Christ’s request before determining what rate increase, if any, should be approved for Ameren Missouri.
On Sept. 23, Christ posted on his social media, expressing support for “a moratorium on new data centers in St. Louis County until strong rules are in place to protect our neighborhoods and utility customers.”
St. Louis County’s planning department is currently working on a draft of proposed policy recommendations regarding data centers — as the St. Louis County Zoning Ordinance, which applies to unincorporated areas of the county, currently does not include standards for data centers — though nothing has been passed by the County Council and there are no pending data center development proposals in the county.
As part of the policy drafting process, a map and table showing the existing applicable zoning districts in unincorporated St. Louis County were released by the planning department, and multiple marked areas were in South County. These marked areas do not necessarily indicate that a data center will go in, rather that the existing zoning — areas already zoned C-6 office and research service, C-7 general extensive commercial and the M-1 and M-2 industrial districts — is in line with the proposed zoning of future data centers.
“The smaller (data centers would) be permitted based on the anticipated impact. Standard and large data centers (would) only be permitted in the industrial districts, the M-1 and M-2, and only via issuance of a conditional use permit. Say that this was all adopted as written today, someone couldn’t apply for a building permit to put a data center in one of those districts. They’d have to go to the planning commission still and ask for the specific land use right tied to their development,” Melissa Wilson, the Deputy Director of the Department of Planning for St. Louis County, told The Call in August.
Regarding the future of data centers in St. Louis County municipalities with their own elected officials — such as Sunset Hills and Crestwood, areas currently represented in the Missouri Legislature by Christ — there are also no current proposals. If there were to be a proposal, it would likely have to go though separate processes with the elected officials in the municipality desired for development, as opposed to through the county, as that body handles specifically developments in unincorporated areas. If those aforementioned municipalities were to follow or adopt the same policy that has been proposed for unincorporated St. Louis County, data centers would not be permitted in Sunset Hills due to the current zoning; according to a zoning map, Crestwood does have certain areas zoned M-1 industrial.
