The city of Austin unveiled the solar farm today, which is supposed to generate 30 megawatts of energy each year – enough to power about 5,000 homes.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) expects challenges meeting energy demands if the summer proves to be as hot as 2011. Trip Doggett, chief executive of the state’s electric grid operator, says he can’t say the Webberville solar farm will be able to solve those challenges.

“I would say every little bit helps,” Doggett said. “This is not a tremendous magnitude of additional megawatts, but every little bit helps.”

Despite the relatively small energy output, the Webberville solar installation is the largest in Texas.Austin Energy has a 25-year contract to buy all the power from the plant which will help the city along in reaching its goal of getting at least 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell started his re-election bid in November with an announcement that it is his intention to find a way to provide energy to the City of Austin without the use of any coal-generated electricity.

“Starting immediately, I’m going to begin a dialogue with the community, with Austin Energy, with the LCRA, and with state officials, about how to make Austin coal-free–and aggressively plan a date to achieve that goal,” the mayor said during his announcements.

Currently, Austin obtains coal-based energy from only one source, the Fayette Power Project in La Grange.

The 600 megawatt plant provides nearly 20 percent of Austin’s power, while the rest comes from natural gas, nuclear
and an increasing amount of wind power. As a start to getting off coal, all City of Austin facilities and operations are 100% powered by Greenchoice® energy, derived from entirely renewable sources.

Read more: Austin Energy top green power seller in U.S. | Austin Business Journal

Click on the above articles for more details.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out, with some arguing that when all goes as planned, nuclear can be a much cleaner energy source than other options such as coal , but can obviously have very disasterous consequences when things go wrong.

The ABJ has this story about the Fayette power plant (the Fayette Power Plant provides power to Austin Energy):

Three anti-pollution groups have filed a federal lawsuit against the Lower Colorado River Authority’s coal-fired power plant near La Grange, about 70 miles southeast of Austin.

The lawsuit was filed Monday by Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project, Austin-based Environment Texas and Texas Campaign for the Environment, which has offices in Houston, Dallas and Austin.

The groups claim LCRA’s Fayette Power Project has violated the federal Clean Air Act thousands of times. The plaintiffs allege LCRA ramped up capacity and increased levels of dangerous particle pollution, which is not always visible to the eye but is linked to asthma and heart and lung disease….

[Farmers] working in concert with Sierra Club, blame sulfur dioxide emissions from the nearby Fayette Power Project for the downturn in their crops. They demand that the Lower Colorado River Authority and Austin Energy, which co-own the plant, help them.

Officials with Austin Energy and the LCRA dismiss the pecan growers and environmentalists’ claims, and pecan experts are divided about whether such a thing is even possible. Two of the state’s agricultural extension agents have said they have never heard of a connection between pecan production and plant emissions.

Sulfur dioxide harming the plants in Fayette County is “a long shot,” said Larry Stein, a Texas A&M horticulturist based in Uvalde who specializes in pecans. What became Hayek Farm was started around 1900 by the grandfather of Hayek’s wife. By the time Hayek and his wife took over operations in the early 1970s, it had reached 200 acres with nearly 3,000 trees. He grew a half-dozen or more species, with names such as Desirables and Success. Harvests in the 1970s heyday were a quarter-million pounds a year.

Austin Energy could invest as much as $28 million during the next five years on public charging equipment and promotion for electric cars.

The investment mirrors efforts by utilities across the state to elbow their way into the American transportation energy market. In effect, the power generating companies want to displace gasoline from a pump with electricity from a plug.

Austin officials say as many as 190,000 electric-powered cars, including plug-in hybrids, could be rolling around Austin in a decade. Other studies suggest that figure is optimistic, but whatever the number, the utility officials want to make the possibility a reality.

“We expect to get a lot of new revenue off that $28 million investment,” said Karl Rábago, vice president for distributed energy services at the city-owned utility.

Beyond a business decision, the utility couches the electric car money as an environmental and security effort.

“Any revenue we make comes at the expense of the oil industry,” Rábago said. “I want to keep our money in the community. I don’t want to send it to Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela.”

Thus far, oil companies have largely stayed mum as utilities take baby steps to expand into their market.

The so called “Best Offer Ever” would pay an estimated 42 percent of the cost to make whole-house energy efficiency improvements, up from the regular 20 percent rebate. Officials are hosting a news conference to announce details of the program Oct. 26.

From now until Dec. 20, customers that apply for Austin Energy’s “Home Performance with Energy Star Rebate” are eligible for the Best Offer. The upgraded incentive allows for 0 percent loans and up to $2,300 worth in Texas Gas Service rebates and federal tax credits.

Check out the whole article for more details!

Read more: Austin Energy unveils new green home incentives | Austin Business Journal

The plant will be one of the nation’s largest when it is built, generating enough power on its 177,000 solar panels to add as much as 30 megawatts of generating capacity to the 2,900 megawatts of capacity Austin already has. That translates to the power consumed by about 5,100 homes, Pryor [development chief for San Francisco-based FRV] said.

City officials say the array will keep Austin on pace to meet the city’s goal of getting one-third of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

But the renewable energy plan has had its critics, particularly large consumers of electricity, including Spansion, Freescale Semiconductor, St. David’s Medical Center and the Building Owners and Managers Association of Austin. They worry that the green sources will drive up electricity costs.