Smart Energy Plan

November 07, 2025

Smart Grid Upgrades Aim to Prevent Outages in Mid-Missouri

Innovative smart technology supports faster restoration near Moberly

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Ameren Missouri is making infrastructure upgrades that support increased reliability for customers in Randolph County. Improvements include the installation of multiple smart switches in the Moberly area. These devices can automatically detect outages and rapidly reroute and restore power.

“We’ve been using switches in the area for some time, but older models required crews to manually operate them, which adds time to any restoration work,” said Troy Rafferty, superintendent of Ameren’s Moberly operating center. “Now, high-tech sensors can instantly detect a problem and isolate it from the rest of the grid. Folks who would have waited hours for restoration with manual switches may now see nothing more than a brief power blink. That’s the Smart Energy Plan at work.”

Ameren Missouri has installed more than 1,850 smart switches across the state since the start of the Smart Energy Plan in 2019. They have already prevented more than 330,000 outages during major storms. In 2025, the company upgraded or added at least nine smart switch devices in the Moberly area. In town, manual switches are being replaced with smart ones in a move to support more than 1,500 customers. These upgrades also include the installation of stronger composite poles, further bolstering reliability in the community.

South of Moberly, Ameren Missouri installed an innovative new switch design to its 69-kilovolt subtransmission lines. These industry-first switches, known as Viper®-HV reclosers, were designed for Ameren by G&W Electric of Illinois, in consultation with Ameren engineers.

“These larger subtransmission lines can travel long distances, making it difficult and time-consuming to find and fix problems as fast as we’d like to,” says Rafferty. “By scaling up and adapting the smart switch design for our 69-kV system, we can keep the lights on for more customers while we do that work.”

The Viper-HV reclosers support reliability for hundreds of customers in eastern Randolph County and into neighboring Monroe County.

To learn more about how the Smart Energy Plan is supporting reliability across Missouri, visit Ameren.com/Reliability.