Kirk Watson, Ryan Alter propose competing amendments to Austin Energy plan

Gearing up for a vote Thursday on Austin Energy’s Resource Generation Plan, Mayor Kirk Watson and Council Member Ryan Alter have each proposed amendments to a plan that has gone through a variety of iterations and gained the endorsement of the Electric Utility Commission and the Resource Management Commission. Both groups suggested changes that do not radically change the plan. Watson said City Council would discuss the options at today’s Council work session.

The mayor posted on the City Council Message Board: “My top priorities in this process are to divest from the Fayette Power Project and ensure reliable and affordable power for our community.”

Fayette remains far and away the most polluting of Austin Energy’s power plants. Austin Energy had a plan to shut down the plant in 2022 but that did not work out.

Watson also proposed an amendment to the Resource Generation Plan introducing a new Carbon Intensity Standard.

“By using this metric, we ensure that any future generation investments Austin Energy makes will have the effect of reducing emissions from where they are today. This metric includes CO2, NOx, and other greenhouse gases. It is worth noting that NOx standards are required as part of the permitting process for any new generation.” (NOx is an important chemical in creation of smog.)

“The goal of this proposal is to strengthen guardrails as cleaner resources become available to meet customer needs. Further, if Austin Energy’s generation mix changes and a single carbon intensity guardrail isn’t sufficient, it will establish a similar NOx intensity standard for the generation portfolio,” Watson wrote.

Alter wrote that his proposed amendment “affirms our City’s carbon-free goals of 93% by 2030 and 100% by 2035 by reemphasizing our commitment to not only generation, but reduction of carbon emissions. The amendment also prioritizes carbon-free energy savings and generation options before any consideration of alternative options. Importantly, the amendment limits Austin Energy’s ability to add carbon-emitting generation to only the feasibility analysis stage, but only after consideration of energy resources including battery storage and local solar.” That reference is to gas peaker units, which operate on an as-needed basis.

One of the big questions members of both the EUC and the Resource Management Commission wanted to answer was whether Austin Energy should be able to move forward with those peaker units.

Under Alter’s proposed amendments, Austin Energy would be allowed to test peakers and seek proposals for those peakers but would not be able to proceed past that without coming back to Council for approval. That would set up another opportunity to find out whether solar batteries, for example, were advanced enough and inexpensive enough to provide the kind of consistent power source the gas peakers would provide. At this point, the industry has not produced the kind of batteries that would last through a long winter storm but solar advocates are hopeful that the technology will advance enough to provide that kind of battery. Then it becomes a question of price and whether the price will be low enough that Austin Energy customers will be willing to go along with it or so high that Council cannot ask them to do so.

Council Member Alison Alter also posted her support of Ryan Alter’s proposals and added some of her own. She said Council members Chito Vela and Vanessa Fuentes were also in favor of the amendments from Ryan Alter.

The Resource Management Commission had numerous other ideas about how to advance toward a future where carbon emissions are eliminated. The Electric Utility Commission hashed out many ideas over an hourslong meeting that was the culmination of months of discussion and argument over the best way forward. Although Thursday’s vote will not be the final word on the Austin Energy generation plan, it will offer a clear road map for the utility and its customers.

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