Smart Energy Plan project to support reliability in St. Charles

Technology upgrade to create a more reliable electric grid for area customers

Ameren Missouri is investing in smart technology to support increased reliability in St. Charles. Earlier this year, crews installed an IntelliRupter, commonly known as a smart switch, in the historic Frenchtown neighborhood. The newly installed device will support reliability for more than 1,700 homes and businesses.

Please click on the above photo to watch a video highlighting Ameren Missouri's Smart Energy Plan investment in St. Charles.

Smart switches are pole-mounted devices that can detect a disruption in the power supply and automatically switch power to another source. This rapid response can reduce outages that would otherwise last hours or days, down to minutes or even seconds. From January to July 2024, smart switches prevented more than 36,000 outages during major storms. Since 2021, these devices have prevented more than 150,000 outages – the equivalent of avoiding 44 million minutes' worth of customer outages.

Smart switches aren’t just critical during storms; they can also prevent unexpected outages when electrical equipment is damaged. Ameren Missouri has installed more than 1,500 smart switches throughout its service territory as a part of the Smart Energy Plan. To learn more about these investments and others, please visit AmerenMissouri.com/plan.