Greening Austin Daily

Austin Energy Generation Plan Update

22nd February, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

Last Thursday we watched the discussion on PBS of Austin’s proposed long-range Austin Energy’s generation plan. The discussion included green energy, ratepayer, and business advocates as well as AE representatives and a representative of the Catholic diocese.  The AE representative said the company had looked at plans that would raise rates between 15-30% and picked a plan that would raise rates about 22%.  However, as pointed out by Catholic diocese representative, since there will additionally be a rate case in 2012 to update rates (rates haven’t been updated since 1994), and because other miscellaneous charges are scheduled to be added, bills could severely impact low-income residents of Austin when the cost of the proposed plan is added in as well (at one point a 60% rate increase was mentioned when all costs are totaled).   Some of the panel members wanted to focus more on conservation/ energy-efficiency programs in order to use less total MWs, rather than using the same amount of MWs as we are now but from different, cleaner sources. The AE representative stressed that because this is just a plan, AE wouldn’t be obligated to use a certain type of fuel or technology – it would just try and follow the plan if practical.  Tonight at the Palmer Events Center at 6:00 there’s a Mayor’s Energy Generation Town Hall meeting to allow public input on the plan and learn more about the details.