With its large, highly-educated workforce, strategic location, low business costs and clean energy initiative, Missouri is perfectly positioned to take advantage of advances in alternative energy in the wind, solar, and biofuel sectors. Missouri is also home to many successful companies involved in energy generation, such as Ameren Corporation and Kansas City Power & Light.

 Click here to download the Real Renewal brochure.

• Missouri has the 6th best transportation network in the nation based on value of goods shipped by air, land and water, the availability of air travel, and the quality of roads (CNBC).
• Missouri is located within 600 miles of 52% of U.S. manufacturing establishments.
• Missouri is located within 600 miles of 51% of all U.S. households.
• Missouri provides easy access to major OEMs such as Acciona, Nordex, Mitsubishi, and Siemens.
• Four of the top 20 states for existing wind capacity are Missouri's neighbors. Missouri and surrounding states have a combined existing capacity of 6,539 MW, more than 21% of the U.S. total current wind power capacity.

Missouri has:

• The 3rd lowest business energy costs in the U.S. (Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council).
• The 4th lowest overall business costs in the U.S. (CNBC).
• The 5th lowest corporate income tax rate in the U.S (Tax Foundation).

• Missouri ranks 13th in the U.S. for science and engineering degrees granted (National Science Foundation).
• Missouri colleges and universities grant over 3,300 BS degrees in engineering or engineering technology annually (Missouri Department of Higher Education).
• Missouri's workforce exceeds the populations of 20 other states, including neighboring Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, and Nebraska.

• Missouri’s Clean Energy Initiative requires that utility companies increase usage of renewable energy to 15% by 2021. The standard also requires that .3% of retail electricity sales must come from solar electricity. Missouri is one of only 14 states with a provision for solar electricity.
• Kansas City Power & Light Company, a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy Incorporated and headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., announced in 2009 that it had issued requests for proposals to add up to 300 MW of additional emissions-free, renewable wind generation in the 2010 – 2011 timeframe.
• Missouri-based Ameren Corporation launched a major solar initiative in 2009, which included installing solar energy systems at its St. Louis headquarters and a facility in Illinois. The generating capacities for Ameren's solar installations will range between 25 and 550 kilowatts. The first-phase installation projects completed by the fall of 2010.
• Rockport, MO was the first 100 percent wind powered community in the U.S.

• Missouri’s potential wind power capacity is 5,960 MW, ranked 20th in the U.S (AWEA).
• Missouri has the 14th highest average U.S. wind speed (10.1 mph), higher than Texas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and California (State Rankings 2008). 

 Click here to download the Wind Industry brochure.

• Missouri’s solar resources, between 4.5 and 5.0 kilowatt-hours per square meter per day, exceed that of Germany, which leads the world in solar energy production and averages under 3 kilowatt-hours per square meter per day (National Renewable Energy Laboratory).
• Devoting just 1 square mile in Missouri to solar power can provide enough electricity for about 1,100 households per year (National Wildlife Federation). 

Click here to download the Solar Industry brochure.

• Missouri has 6 ethanol plants in operation with a combined capacity of 283.5 million gallons per year (Missouri Department of Natural Resources).
• Missouri has 9 biodiesel plants in operation or planned with a combined capacity of 224 million gallons per year (Missouri Department of Natural Resources).
• In January 2010, a consortium led by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis was the winner of a $44 million Recovery Act award for research into converting algae into biofuels.

Missouri Energy industry related companies include:

Abengoa Bioenergy Corp.: (St. Louis) Abengoa Bioenergy is one of the nation’s largest producers of ethanol.

BZ Products: (St. Louis) BZ Products is a manufacturer of MPP and conventional solar charge controls.

Confluence Solar: (HQ St. Louis) Confluence Solar was founded in 2007 by silicon industry veterans with the purpose of bringing premium quality, low-cost, single crystal silicon as a platform for high efficiency cell design to solar cell manufacturers.

Emerson Electric Co.: (HQ St. Louis)   Emerson is a major manufacturer of wind turbine components including Leroy-Somer generators, SSB Wind Systems’ positioning drives, Jaure couplings, and Emerson Process Management monitoring and control systems to optimize wind farms. Emerson’s Leroy-Somer division was one of the first manufacturers of generators for wind turbines and now makes generators up to 5 MW as well as a range of control motors for the wind industry.  They supply generators and other technology to wind turbine manufacturers in Europe, North America, and Asia.  Leroy-Somer has a network of global plants including their new Fuzhou, China facility which supplies three of China’s largest wind turbine manufacturers.

Kokam America Inc.: (Kansas City) Kokam America manufactures lithium batteries and related products such as battery chargers, battery management systems, and battery packing.

Kokhala Energies Inc.: (HQ St. Louis) Kokhala is a developer and integrator of micro, low temperature, thermal electric and combined heat and power (CHP) systems for the residential solar market.

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. : (HQ St. Louis) MEMC is a global leader in the manufacture and sale of wafers and related products to the semiconductor and solar industries.

Peabody Energy: (HQ St. Louis) Peabody Energy is the world's largest private-sector coal company, with 2008 sales of 255 million tons and $6.6 billion in revenues.

Solutia: (HQ St. Louis) The company has three business units that provide critical components for use in the solar energy market including: encapsulants for solar modules, heat transfer fluids for concentrated solar power plants and PV film coatings.

Wind Capital Group: (HQ St. Louis) Wind Capital is a wind farm developer headquartered in St. Louis which has developed and sold 600 MW of wind farms and built another 160 MW in partnership with John Deere. 

Zoltek: (HQ St. Louis) Zoltek supplies carbon fiber to wind industry manufacturers like DeWind Inc., Vestas Wind Systems, and Gamesa Eolica.

Missouri utilities include:

Electricity:
Ameren Corp.  (HQ in St. Louis)
Citizen’s Electric Corporation (HQ in Ste. Genevieve)
Empire District Electric Co. (HQ in Joplin)
Kansas City Power & Light (HQ in Kansas City)

Natural Gas:
Atmos Energy
Laclede Gas (HQ in St. Louis)
Missouri Gas Energy (HQ in Kansas City)

To learn more about Missouri's Municipal Utility Systems, visit the Missouri Public Utility Alliance.

Nine Missouri colleges offer Precision Metal training courses or Associate degrees.  Eleven Missouri universities offer Bachelor of Science or higher degrees in Engineering. Crowder College (Neosho) offers an Associate of Arts degree in Alternative Energy. Missouri is also home to the following energy industry related research centers:

The International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis (I-CARES): I-CARES was created in June 2007 to encourage and coordinate University-wide and external collaborative research on energy, environment, and sustainability that cannot be done by single investigators or by single disciplines alone. I-CARES fosters research on: the development and production of biofuels from plant and microbial systems; the exploration of sustainable alternative energy; and the exploration of environmental systems and practices.

Missouri University of Science & Technology Energy Research and Development Center: (Rolla) The Energy Research and Development Center was recently awarded a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for research in solar energy and energy management, which will enable students to use hybrid solar thermal electric panels in house design.

University of Missouri-Columbia Center for Sustainable Energy:  The Center for Sustainable Energy was launched to support and coordinate research, education and commercialization of renewable energy sources.

Missouri Proximity to the Wind Corridor Map

Missouri Foundries and Forges

Missouri Sub-Assembly Component Manufacturers

Missouri Photovoltaic Resource Map.

Missouri Solar Industry Companies Map

Missouri Solar Industry Suppliers Map
 

Missouri Chemical Manufacturers Map

Intersolar North America
July  13-15, 2010
San Francisco, CA

Husum WindEnergy
September 21-25, 2010
Husum, Germany

Solar Power International
October 12-14, 2010
Los Angeles, CA