23rd February, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
As discussed in this Statesman article, about 200 people attended last night’s energy forum discussing AE’s proposed plan to increase Austin’s use of renewable resources. Under the plan the utility would get 35% of its energy from renewable resources by 2020. City council may vote on the plan as early as March. It sounds like the discussion was very similar to the one that took place last week on PBS and KUT.
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.
16th February, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Austin Energy recently added solar panels to 6 additional schools in the Austin area. To read the utility’s press release about it, which states that Austin Energy has a goal of installing solar panels at around 50 schools by the end of the year, click here. For the 28 schools Austin Energy has installed solar panels on so far this year, it estimates annual savings of 120,744 kWh.
15th February, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Austin Energy is proposing that Austin get 35% of its energy from renewable resources by 2020, up from 11% currently. For more information, check out the Statesman. Listen to discussion about the proposed plan and its potential costs on KUT Thursday at 8:00PM, or watch it on our local PBS station Thursday at 7:30. There is going to be a public forum on the proposed plan next Monday – we’ll update you with the time and place of that meeting when we have more information.
*UPDATE: The public forum will be on Monday, Feb. 22 at 6 pm at the Palmer Events Center. Read more on the plan here: http://bit.ly
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