Former Austin Mayor Will Wynn, PUC Commissioner Rolando Pablos, Austin Councilmember Bill Spelman, Travis County Commissioner Ron Davis, Webberville Mayor Hector Gonzales, Austin Energy General Manager Larry Weis, Austin Councilmember Chris Riley, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Mark Mendenhall of SunEdison.

On Friday, January 6, 2012, Austin Energy held a grand opening ceremony for their new Webberville Solar Project, the largest facility in Texas and among the largest in the nation with 127,728 ground mounted solar panels that rotate with the sun and will generate 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity – enough to power 5,000 homes annually.

A number of years ago, the City of Austin purchased this land planning to install a new coal-fired power plant.  When those plans fell through, a landfill was proposed for the site that now boasts 280 acres of solar panels with a view of downtown Austin along its horizon.

Public Citizen says kudos to the City of Austin and Austin Energy for their vision and efforts in completing this project.  Given that the State Climatologist is warning us that Texas can expect up to 5 more years of the current drought cycle, this project came just in time to help provide our community with drought–proof electricity during the peak use times – that will come in handy next summer.

San Antonio is trying to marry investment in renewables with economic development in an effort to keep the cost of electricity as low as possible while getting as many jobs as possible, but the city has had a learning curve in this process, yet they remain confident that this vision can come to fruition.

Thirty two companies initially submitted 111 proposals several months ago. The utility then re-opened the bidding process and expected to make a decision by Sept. 1. Even as CPS Energy zeroed in on two finalists, Lewis said, other companies around the globe approached the utility with their own ideas and CPS Energy officials decided to end negotiations and open a third round of bidding after rewriting the specifications of what it wants.

So the problem lies not with no takers, but with many and new ideas coming forward to possibly make this move by San Antonio more profitable.  What this Central Texas metroplex does with this process could set the trend for the country and remains an experiment to watch.

The PUC wants to have a meeting at the end of August to try to figure out how to fix Texas’s experiment of a deregulated generation market, as we look like we are going to run out of energy during what could be ever increasing hot summers.
It seems the current market based behavior doesn’t send proper signals to companies to build new generation.
In addition our grid was designed to be almost completely isolated from the rest of the country so we cannot get help if its needed and available.
Generators use old, outdated generation to reduce costs and even turn off environmental controls to further lower costs at the expense of citizens health and to maximize profits.
The “new” market is based on scarcity pricing but if generation is truly scarce we have rolling blackouts, which are devastating to the economy and kill people.
Before deregulation the Utility commission would request new generation be built in a certain time frame and capacity and pay a preset profit margin to the companies that participated. They did the same thing with transmission lines and retail costs.
These are critical infrastructure needs and were protected from the swings of the financial and other markets. The process was covered under the term Total Resource Planning.
Now with the current heat wave and over a decade of deregulated markets we face the possibility that there will not be enough generation to meet the needs of Texas. We have many old and highly polluting plants that resemble the old steam locomotives of the 1800’s carting around a bin of coal to burn rocks and boil water. A larger amount of our critical infrastructure also consists of ancient natural gas “steamer” plants that are only run around 400 hours a year and are also highly polluting and have proven not to be very reliable but highly profitable.
Compare that to the newer generation of combined cycle gas turbines that resemble a jet engine and have several additional generators attached to it to recover the excess heat to generate even more energy with low stack emissions.
We have harvested significant amounts of non-polluting wind energy (coastal wind is over-performing expectations during the current crises) but the majority is located in just one region (West Texas) leading to problems of transmission congestion and generation variability. Some progress has been made on building wind projects in the areas along the Texas coast that provide energy much closer to the time that its needed, but more needs to be done.
Texas has made very little progress on adding an solar generation (that would provide energy when its needed most) because of a lack of policy leadership at the legislature and the PUC.

Now the PUC wants to tinker with the market to see if it can artificially raise the price of energy by using a “proxy” price as in “we will pay you more because our market system isn’t working, so pretty please build some new generators”.

This is a hell of a way to provide the resources that Texans need. Its time to get rid of the old smoking wreaks of generation plants that are carrying the load, sucking up our ever shrinking water supplies and fouling our air, and go to a controlled “regulated” modernized generation plan that uses all our resources with the least impact to our health, environment and wallets.
We used to pay a fair price for services delivered, now we just pay and hope the lights stay on.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas

The next question is where.  The company has vetted a total of seven sites in three states, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, as potential hosts for the ambitious project.  They say the sites must meet certain criteria:

1	Having enough undeveloped land to put this farm in (ideally 4,000 acres contiguously) but because the Southeast doesn’t have the same relatively unused land resources as the Southwest, the company is looking at a different approach.  Creating the world’s largest solar farm that could be made up of as many as 20 different fields.
2	Appropriate economic development strategies, such as tax incentives that could include federal, state and local incentives, and financial partners.
3	Community support, and
4	A qualified work force.

The five-year build out project is projected to cost roughly $1.5 billion.

The 1,000 megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project in California that broke ground last month is projected to create 1,000 direct jobs during construction phases and 200 permanent positions. It will also create 7,500 indirect jobs throughout the country.

So many of these opportunities are passing Texas by because the state had failed to provide incentives for them to come here.  Fortunately, Texas has some large cities with municipally owned utilities that are seeing the advantages to their communities both in terms of jobs, the ability to lure other associated industries (like PV manufacturing) to their cities, and the stablelization of their peak electric demand by investing in rooftop and utility scale solar and other renewable sources of power.

We had hoped that Texas lawmakers would pass a bill this session to establish a statewide rebate for solar projects, financed by extra charges on electric bills. But it died without getting out of a House committee.

Senator John Carona (R-Dallas)

For many who want to add more rooftop and other on-site solar generating devices on homes and even commercial properties, there have been concerns about the prospect of being regulated as utilities.  This concern has been seen as an overly burdensome barrier to the industry, however Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) filed legislation that would make clear that retail electric customers who install generation devices such as solar panels on their property are not regulated as generating companies as long as they don’t produce more than 2,000 kilowatts.  To see the text of the SB 981, click here.

The legislation also would direct the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to conduct a study that would help to establish a fair market price for retail electric customers who generate surplus power that could be sold back to the grid.

Too bad the commissioners at the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) don’t see it the same way. After spending years (literally, years– since 2005) to come up with a portion of the state’s renewable portfolio standard to deal with solar and other forms of renewables besides wind,  they finally got around to publishing a proposed rule (the 500Mw non-wind portfolio standard) for these technologies.

This effort, at best, would be best termed as abysmal.

As described by the Environmental Defense Fund in this post “The proposed rule drastically reduces the target set by the Texas Legislature in 2005 of 500 MW by the year 2015.”

Commissioner Ken Anderson  described it this way: “This is just a proposal.”  In fact, all three Commissioners stressed  that the simple act of publishing the proposed rule does not mean that the commission ever intends to implement the rule.

So it looks like the Legislature is once again going to have to take up this simple task. And give the commission direction. As they did 5 years ago. And again during last session.

Texas has lost hundreds of opportunities for solar companies to locate here–  and over 10 billion in capitol investment– because we don’t have any statewide policy in place to support what could be the biggest boom industry since they started calling the Austin the Silicon Hills (as opposed to the silicon valley).

With the Legislature having its hands full with a huge budget shortfall, redistricting and their usual work on top of it, let’s hope they can find time to  send a clear message to the PUC that this needs to be done (as they were instructed in 2005) and it needs to be done now before more opportunities slip away.

We need  a dramatically increased solar program.  More than anything, we need the jobs, we need the energy, we have the people and we have plenty of sunshine.  We just need a little good policy.

With ICF International’s John Blaney stateing “We’re continuing to expect renewable capacity to grow rapidly in the near term, but it slows briefly after the incentives expire. Despite the recent market volatility – the huge buildup in 2009 and the slowdown in 2010 — we project that the U.S. will install just over 51 gigawatts of renewables between 2011 and 2016 and 86 gigawatts between 2017 and 2030″, is Texas really going to miss out on this energy boom ?

With Austin and San Antonio making strides, the announcement of the ground breaking by RRE Austin on their solar farm and SunPower looking to open an office in Austin its just the tip of what could be a clean tech explosion for Texas.

Send some sunshine our way.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

The Obama administration has approved the sixth solar venture authorized on federal lands within the last month for a project in the Mojave Desert near Blythe, Calif.  All of the projects are on federally owned desert in the Southwest that the land management bureau opened in 2005 to solar development.  Even with these six projects and a 7th expected in the next few weeks, solar energy will remain a tiny fraction of overall energy production on U.S. lands compared to the 74,000 oil and gas permits issued in the past two decades

This project will be the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant which will use a “parabolic trough” system where parabolic mirrors focus the sun’s energy onto collector tubes. The fluid in the tubes is then heated and sent to a boiler, which sends live steam to a turbine to produce electricity, producing enough electricity to more than double the U.S. solar output, power at least 300,000 homes, and generate 1,066 construction jobs and 295 permanent jobs.

Construction on the $6 billion plant is expected to start by the end of 2010, with production starting in 2013. Solar plants that begin construction before Dec. 31 qualify for a Treasury Department grant totaling 30 percent of a project’s cost, as part of last year’s economic stimulus package.

The project had run into opposition by some environmentalists due to wildlife concerns, but the project will now be required to “provide funding for more than 8,000 acres of desert tortoise, western burrowing owl, bighorn sheep and Mojave fringe-toed lizard habitat to mitigate the project’s impacts.”

The solar industry is touting the efforts made by the Obama administration and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to promote solar power, which are clearly beginning to pay off.  Take a hint, Texas.

From the CPS web site.

CPS Energy Rising to Be National Leader in Green Power

CPS Energy’s renewable energy portfolio will increase by 30 megawatts (MW) with this week’s signing of a new 25-year purchase power agreement (PPA) with SunEdison, a global leader in delivering solar electricity. With the SunEdison agreement, CPS Energy now has 44 MW of solar generation under contract, solidifying its position as the leader in renewable energy resources among municipally owned utilities in the nation.  The contract moves CPS Energy closer to its vision of providing customers with 1,500 MW of renewable energy (wind and solar) by 2020.

“The market for solar energy continues to improve, and this agreement takes advantage of that,” said President and CEO Doyle Beneby. “In addition to more than 40 MW of solar generation, CPS Energy has rebates that incentivize the use of solar by homeowners and businesses, and a developing distributed-generation program. With 300 days of sunshine each year, it just makes sense that San Antonio becomes a hub for solar energy in the U.S.”

By fall of 2012, Maryland-based SunEdison is expected to complete installation of 120,000 single-axis tracking photovoltaic (PV) panels that will follow the sun throughout the day, generating a total of 30 MW at three locations across the CPS Energy service area. The three locations will be announced later this year, and construction is expected to begin in early 2012. The combined energy output of the three facilities is expected to be approximately 54,000 megawatt hours—enough to power about 3,700 homes.

“We are pleased to provide this long-term, renewable energy solution for our customers,” added CPS Energy Chief Sustainability Officer Cris Eugster.  “In addition to helping us meet our goal to provide 100 MW of solar generation by 2020, we’re also looking to SunEdison to be a key partner in transforming San Antonio into a national hub for solar energy.”

“SunEdison is committed to the growing Texas solar energy market, and we look forward to expanding our utility scale presence in the state in 2011,” said Carlos Domenech, President of SunEdison.  “Our development capabilities, financing power and execution track record enables municipal utilities, like CPS Energy, to benefit from economically viable solar solutions.”

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Recently introduced the “Storage Technology of Renewable and Green Energy Act of 2010″ Act (S. 3617) introduced by U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) stands to finally get things moving in the energy storage development space.

To go along with that, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality announced that they are taking applications for a Texas Emissions Reduction Program (TERP) new technology implementation grant (NTIG) on energy storage based on a bill that got passed last session (yes they did pass a few bills last session). Anyone that needs a cool 3 mil to get a project off the ground should consider applying as applications are due by September 17 and, if congress can get their act together, there might be a 20% tax credit to sweeten the pot.

Energy storage has been called the holy grail of renewable’s by members of the Leg and could potentially solve a bunch of technical issues on the Texas electrical grid depending on the technology implemented. Compressed air storage, fast acting flywheels, super conducting magnetic loops and all sort of different batteries each provide a different solution to various problems.

Grid stabilization is one that needs to be looked at in the near future. Using solid state electronics these storage solutions can react in fractions of a second (and less then one of the 60 cycles per second our electrical system runs on) to smooth the flow of electrons from the generator to your home and business and reducing the speed that a gas generator needs to react to an increase or decrease in load on the electrical grid.

Large scale storage will allow wind (which blows mostly at night in Texas) and solar to be stored and used when the energy is most needed (all though solar produces most of its energy at peak load already). Batteries, suitably placed like the one EET built in Presidio can reduce the need to build new transmission lines and substations. Lets hope our Legislators (both in Texas and at the federal level) can do something to move this new technology along. It can support the increasing amount of renewable’s we need to build, stabilize our electrical system and reduce emissions by making renewable energy available when we need it, and providing fast acting response when the grid needs a little extra juice, rather than firing up another gas turbine, or help us, a coal plant.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

This is outrageous. A permit which should have been denied outright, or at the least sent back to the beginning of the process, is instead being temporarily remanded on a number of less significant issues. Below is the proceeding in its entirety. The first video covers the first part of the process when the applicant and the opposition’s representation were allowed time to make comments to the commissioners. The second video shows the commissioners’ decision which is then followed by a press conference which includes responses from local residents in Corpus Christi who would be directly affected by the pollution TCEQ is failing to properly address.

For more information contact Public Citizen’s office at 512-477-1155.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas

Anchia and Johnson: A challenge to build on solar idea

We were thrilled by TXU’s announcement last week that it will team with SolarCity to provide an option for residents wanting to install rooftop solar panels. The $35-per-month leasing program provides an innovative way to offset the high upfront cost of solar, which is the largest barrier to residents powering their homes with solar and selling electricity back to their retail electric provider.

But it’s difficult for other providers to follow this example because they don’t have the cash reserves for such subsidies. The TXU program relies on an Oncor rebate program created as part of the negotiated 2007 buyout of TXU by Energy Future Holdings.

The program will not be sustainable once the Oncor funding is exhausted. So Texas should create a statewide incentive for distributed renewable energy within its existing renewable energy program.

Since the TXU/SolarCity announcement, more than 2,000 Texans have called to ask for more details. Clearly, demand exists for solar in Texas.

Our state has the most solar radiation in the country, we are home to the world’s largest supplier of solar-grade silicon, and we are great innovators in the high-tech industry. Texas would be a natural home for the nation’s solar industry.

But we need leadership to get us there. By providing incentives to help Texans put solar panels on the roofs of homes and businesses and by building large-scale solar farms, we can clean the air, create good manufacturing jobs and become a national leader in solar power.

The best way for Texas to ensure that this happens is by committing to a 10-year market development program that includes financial incentives and new construction design policies. With even a modest investment, we can help create economies of scale to make solar affordable for everyone and create a major economic engine for the state.

As a first step, the Public Utility Commission should use its authority to implement a 500-megawatt “non-wind” 2015 goal in our state renewable energy law and include a 100-megawatt program for distributed renewable energy generation.

Additionally, we should work with all stakeholders to ensure that retail electric providers offer fair buyback rates to electric customers who produce a surplus of electricity and are able to put electricity back on the grid. These policies would be an important down payment for solar that we can improve on in the 82nd Legislature as we look ahead to 2020 and beyond.

According to a survey done by the governor’s own pollster, “There is a statewide consensus to ‘require’ electric companies to provide a certain percentage of their product from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Support crossed party, racial and gender lines — 86 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans, 89 percent of Hispanics, 84 percent of females under the age of 55 and 61 percent of males over the age of 55.”

Texas should adopt a solar program and make sure we don’t miss out on what is sure to become a major economic driver for the 21st century.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia represents House District 103 in Dallas, Irving, Carrollton and Farmers Branch; his e-mail address is rafael.anchia@house.state.tx.us. McCall Johnson is the clean energy advocate for Environment Texas; her e-mail address is mjohnson@environmenttexas.org.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Last spring, our minds were budding with thoughts of birds, bees, and… Texas’ solar potential (didn’t you know, a robust solar program would put Texans back to work and position the state as a world leader for solar production!) Ah, sweet romance.

First Public Citizen, Environment Texas and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club hosted a statewide round of press conferences to roll out our solar report, Texas Solar Roadmap (though I’d really recommend the abridged version, Wildcatting the Sun). It seemed like every other legislator had some incarnation of a solar bill, and folks were wondering if this was going to be the solar session. We were (and remain) especially excited about the City of Austin’s potential to become the nation’s new clean energy hub, just like it was for the semiconductor industry — and almost like an answer to our prayers, within months the Austin City Council voted in favor of a 30MW solar plant in Webberville (though not without a little nerve-racking delay).

And of course, somewhere in that busy, busy time, we found time to make an awesome solar video for Environment Texas’ solar video contest:

Too bad we just couldn’t compare to Mic SoL-O and his sweet, sweet rhymes:

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

We’ve had a hell of a year here at Texas Vox.  In such a short span we’ve gone from a humble policy blog, primarily read internally and by our own interns, to stake our claim as a top climate and energy blog in the state, with a national and even international reach.  And you, dear citizen-readers, are not the only ones to take notice: from responses we’ve received over the year it is clear that we’re also on the radar of agency commissioners, legislators, city council members and even the office of the governor.  Not too shabby for 12 month’s time, and an exciting place to be as we enter a new decade and crucial political time.

So here’s the first segment of our “Year in Review” series: the Top Texas Vox Stories of 2009.

1. Energy Citizens

Remember when, way back in August, your intrepid friends at Texas Vox boogied down to Houston to crash the American Petroleum Institute’s astroturf “Energy Citizens” rally?  This was the first of several rallies across the nation that API staged to make it look like there was a strong, ground-up movement against a federal climate change bill.  But it turned out that the event was more of a company picnic than a grassroots campaign; they blocked our entry and wouldn’t even let in the “real” anti-cap and trade grassroots, as organized by folks like Freedomworks — no American flags either! But never fear, your own Citizen Sarah was able to sneak past their burly guards and interview a few of these so-called Energy Citizens — who we found out say the darndest things (like that they don’t really know much of anything about the climate and energy bill and are there because or their employers)!

API’s antics didn’t end in Houston, either — in North Carolina, they even locked out the state representative of the district where the rally was held! After a few more rallies, it quickly became clear that on top of being funded by the American Petroleum Institute and stocked with energy company employees, the majority of them were also organized by oil-industry lobbyists. But by that point, no one was buying API’s story anymore.  Way to bust ‘em, Netroots!

2. The 2009 81st Legislative Session

Activists had high hopes for the 2009 81st Legislative Session.  With the new Obama administration, fear of pending federal climate legislation, and a new Speaker of the House to break the Craddickocracy, it seemed almost certain that good bills would pass to move Texas closer to a clean energy future.

Two weeks into the session, Public Citizen Texas’ legislative package (which included such lofty goals as significant climate change legislation, a major update of state energy efficiency programs, a non-wind renewable portfolio standard (RPS), and a bill to create incentives for solar power) was in the best shape it had ever been, and the session looked to be one of the most productive in history.  At this point, all of the bills Public Citizen’s Texas office supported had made it out of committee, been passed by either one chamber or the other, and had made it out of Calendars committee and were scheduled for debate.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of our legislation was calendared behind an incredibly contentious Voter ID bill which would have required Texas voters to present a valid driver’s license to vote.  In order to block this bill, House Democrats adopted the “chubbing” tactic — talking bills to death — to avoid getting far enough down the bill list to have to vote on the Voter ID bill.

This stalling technique cut five days from the end of the session deadline and killed a tragically long laundry list of bills that were scheduled after Voter ID.  As an example, SB 16, an omnibus air quality bill which would have provided funding for TERP, plug-in hybrids, and a diesel emissions reduction plan, was directly after Voter ID on Calendars.  Our solar incentives bill was also on the same page, and the non-wind RPS bill was scheduled to be discussed the following day.  It was a very disheartening end to an otherwise shining legislative session — kind of like a great interception and full field run that ended in a trip just shy of the 1 yard line.

But there were still some great victories in there. These major wins included:

• Funding for the Texas Emissions Reduction Program (TERP) for areas in non-attainment status of the federal Clean Air Act (CHB 1796)
• A carbon dioxide registry to address the state’s contribution to global warming (CHB 1796)
• A “green fee” bill allowing the governing board of public colleges and universities to institute an environmental service fee (once approved by student body election)
• A bill to create municipal solar districts that would allow local governments to provide low-cost loans to consumers to install solar on roofs (HB 1937)
• A “no regrets” strategy for greenhouse gas reduction in the state.  This bill will require the State Comptroller to examine the state’s energy use in order to find ways to reduce our emissions and save money at the same time (SB 184)
• A green fleets bill to promote low emissions and plug-in hybrid vehicles for fleets of major state agencies (HB 432)

For the full text, all-green-groups wrap-up number, read the press release Texas Legislature Advances Clean Power and Green Jobs, but Loses Steam in Political Wranglings.

Check back with us tomorrow for more fun stories from 2009!

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

If you missed out on that event, or listened in but would like a recap, check out our videos from the forum.  Here’s a quick recap, featuring highlights from the evening — but those who would like to watch the entire broadcast can find that coverage after the jump.

Full video after the jump!

Here are the highlights:

Energy Efficiency: Goal increases from 700 megawatts to 800 megawatts by 2020, a new study on energy efficiency potential will be conducted and AE will target “baseload” efficiency more (previously they had really gone after peak reduction with an emphasis on load-shifting).

Renewable Energy: Goal increases from 30% to 35%. Doesn’t seem like a lot but it is. By 2020 Austin Energy will have 1001 megawatts of wind, 200 megawatts of solar (double what the previous goal was) and 162 megawatts of biomass.  They had originally thought to seek an additional 100 MW of biomass on top of what AE already has coming from Nagocdoches in 2012, but decided to scale that back to 50 MW. Not a bad idea considering the limited resource in Texas.

Gas: An additional 200 MW of combined cycle at Sand Hill. The expansion of the plant will provide balancing services to variable renewable resources.

Nuclear: Keep STP 1 & 2. Still saying no to 3 & 4 (woo-hoo!). If someone makes them an offer to contract for the power (we hope it never gets built), they’ll evaluate it.

Coal: The increase in energy efficiency and renewable energy should enable AE to reduce the capacity factor of their share of Fayette coal plant to around 60%, “setting the stage for eventual sale or other disposition of Austin’s share of the plant” (from the AE recommendation). At last night’s Electric Utility Commission meeting, Duncan said currently it’s at about 85-90%.

CO2 plan: Emissions would be 20% below 2005 levels by 2020 (Waxman, Markey, you got that?).

Water use: Water use intensity of the utility’s generation sources reduces by 20% from 724 gallons/kWh to 574 gallons/kWh. Most of that would come from running Fayette smaller.

Other notes: AE will heavily go after solar resources within the city. Duncan estimated that there is roughly 3,000-4,000 MW of solar potential in the city (both for electricity and solar water heating). AE also would work to develop energy storage like compressed air energy storage-aka CAES (case).

We have tons of questions and we’re still analyzing the plan. But our first impression is: this is a pretty good plan but it can be improved.  Roger Duncan and his staff deserve recognition. At a time when other utilities in Texas are actually still building new coal plants (CPS Energy, LCRA), Austin Energy recognizes the need to get out of coal. To hear this acknowledged by the utility publicly is very positive, but City Council needs to make this a commitment. The goal should be to see Fayette closed… sooner rather than later.

Obviously, this plan comes with a price tag. Once we get the chance to ask more questions and analyze the plan and possible variations of it we’ll do a more in depth post.

We look forward to a healthy debate on this plan over the next few months. To all you Austinites who want a clean and more sustainable utility, keep urging city council to go beyond coal!

-Matt