Union Power Cooperative history

Following this consolidation, Union Electric Company of Missouri became simply Union Electric Company in 1956.

The company made one more electric company acquisition in southeastern Iowa in 1958.

Union Electric constructed the Merramec plant, with a capacity of 900 megawatts, in 1961, while launching construction for a plant at Taum Sauk, 90 miles southwest of St Louis.

Another boon to the electric utility business in general came with the reduction of natural gas rates in 1964.

The four-unit Labadie plant was launched in 1970, with one unit added each year.

By 1974 Union Electric was ready to set the station in motion, collecting trash from four sites in St Louis and processing up to 2.5 million tons of garbage at the Labadie plant.

The following December the company reached a settlement with Westinghouse Electric, which Union Electric had sued, charging failure to fulfill a 1975 uranium-supply contract.

The following is an excerpt from the book Miracle Blessing - Rural Electrification in Pennsylvania, originally published in 1977:

Another event contributing to a delay in Union Electric's nuclear plant plans was the March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The company offered 6.5 million common shares of stock in December 1982, and sold a total of $220 million in various bond issues to help offset the short-term debt caused by the nuclear plant construction delay.

The year 1986 provided good news; sales of electricity to commercial and residential customers increased, while Union Electric's fuel costs decreased as a result of reduced generation.