21 Aug The Future of Energy in Austin: Upcoming Battles

In advance of upcoming City Council meetings that will review plans put forth by Austin Energy and the Austin Generation Resource Planning Task Force about the city’s future energy supply, Council Member Chris Riley spoke to renewable advocates at the Solar Austin Happy Hour on Tuesday, August 19th.

He reminded everyone that increasing Austin’s renewable goals above 35 percent will be a challenge and will require the hard work of environmentalists throughout the entire city. However, he remained hopeful that City Council would be able to push Austin’s renewable generation closer to 50 percent by 2020, as opposed to the original 35 percent goal.

The following is a recording of Riley speaking to the Solar Austin community. 

And if you can't listen to all of Riley's remarks, I've summed up some of the key points he made for you below:  

• Riley started off by reminding everyone in the room that their voices matter and that the city council listens.
• There will be resistance from Austin Energy about the Austin Generation Resource Planning Task Force report, Riley predicted.
• Riley acknowledged the fact that Austin has had a utility who has seemed to embrace renewables but, he warned, it’s going to get a lot harder going forward. 
• Riley stressed the importance of reaffirming a commitment to affordability goals. – “I suspect that we are going to have to make the case that we are going to maintain those goals, even with the adoption of the plan and I think we can make that case," Riley said.
• Riley also encouraged Austin residents and activists to get out there and attend city council meetings to make the case for increased renewable generation. It will not be possible without public support, he said.
• The goal is to get a new generation plan passed before the new council is elected.
• Now is exactly the time when we need to be having this conversation, Riley said. He emphasized the fact that Austin needs to make it clear that this is a community that is committed to being a national leader on renewables. “I think with your help we can do that," he said.
• Riley said that his resolution for the August 28th city council meeting is still a work in progress, but it will essentially be incorporating principal recommendations of the task force, the most significant of which is to replace the Decker power plant with 600 MW of solar. Replacing Decker with another Decker is not a big challenge, he said. Austin Energy already wants to replace it.  – “AE staff are very intent on replacing Decker with another gas plant," Riley said. "They are very serious about that and they will be making the case that a combined cycle gas plant is really what we need because it's dispatchable, it has the capacity that we need and so on. That is what we are up against. That will be the principle battle.” 
• "I would like to be able to establish new goals for renewables with this resolution and I am hopeful that we can get to some number and we have kicked around a number of 50 percent renewables by 2020, but that’s still something that we’re talking about," Riley concluded.