Austin Energy generation plan before city council next week

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Next week, the Austin City Council will vote on the Austin Energy Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035.

"Every few years Austin Energy develops what's called the generation plan, which is essentially how our municipally-owned utility makes its power," Council Member Ryan Alter from District 5 said.

The city gathered input on the plan from the community in the form of public meetings, a survey with thousands of respondents and brought in experts including the Webber Energy Group from the University of Texas at Austin.

The plan: "provides a flexible path to a clean energy future that incorporates our community’s core values of reliability, affordability, environmental sustainability and energy equity while meeting new challenges and opportunities," the draft plan says.

Much of the planning process focused on risks the utility may face in the next decade including a growing population and increased energy consumption, climate change and balancing cost to the consumer with the financial health of Austin Energy.

The Webber Energy Group also provided the utility with a report that looked at potential challenges.

"AE must address the expiration of renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) and rising power demand driven by four main factors: population and economic growth; electrification of home heating and cooking; large load growth (e.g., data center growth); and electric vehicle (EV) adoption," the report said.

The plan lays out priorities that include:

• Continue moving toward 100% carbon-free energy by 2035
• Improve reliability, affordability and environmental sustainability
• Protect vulnerable customers
• Resiliency in the face of extreme weather and associated financial risk

"I think this plan is really focused on meeting the priorities put forward by the public but it also doesn't consider how the cost of polluting or using carbon-emitting generation, what kind of costs those have," Alter said. "When we talk about affordability certainly we talk about our monthly bill, but if we're going to have to spend a lot of money to address the effects of climate change, that shows up."

You can read the full draft plan here.

Austin City Council is expected to vote on the plan during its Dec. 12 meeting.

New load growth: Data centers and EVs

Some of the discussion with Webber Energy Group was about the potential for significant new load growth in the Austin area over the next few years, "whether it is new businesses, new data centers -- which really do use a lot of power and they use it all the time -- hopefully more electric vehicles," Alter explained.

Those data centers and electric vehicle charging stations were something Webber Energy group highlighted in their report and brought as a priority to the city council.

"Our analysis identifies unmanaged EV charging as the most significant driver of peak demand growth. If EV charging remains unmanaged, it could account for nearly half of the total peak load," their report said. "Smart-charging technologies will be a crucial component of AE’s resource plan, with the potential to shave 3,600 MW off of peak demand. Data centers could also emerge as drivers of peak demand growth, though their individual power requirements are uncertain. Data center expansion will therefore necessitate careful monitoring and adaptable strategies from AE."