Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee
0:01 Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I will call the meeting of the Austin energy utility oversight committee to order
0:08 at 9 0 9 on November 18th, uh, 2025.
0:14 Uh, we have a, a busy day today.
0:16 We're gonna go as quickly as possible to the, the Austin energy utility oversight, uh, committee, uh, meeting.
0:23 Uh, and we're gonna go ahead and skip the quarterly reports, uh, for today.
0:28 They're in the backup.
0:29 Uh, they're online. Uh, and please feel free to, uh, review them.
0:33 Uh, and if you have any questions, you can reach out to Austin energy staff.
0:37 And we're also gonna take things slightly out of order.
0:39 First, we'll do the general manager's report, then the generation plan update, then the electricity electric system resiliency
0:47 plan, and then if we have time, the, uh, the presentation on, uh, solar leasing.
0:52 But first up, uh, public communication.
0:55 Uh, daniel, do we have, uh, speakers today?
0:57 Yes, we have two.
0:59 Can I have kaba white and scott johnson?
1:12 Thank you. Yes. Okay.
1:17 Good morning, Mayor council members, uh, Council Member Vela.
1:21 My name is scott johnson.
1:22 I have a long history with electric lawnmowers and sales events and exchange events here.
1:27 My purpose is to try to work creatively to find funding that May be within the, or maybe
1:35 available to the office of climate action and resilience, or maybe not.
1:39 And therefore, I've followed this issue for a while.
1:43 This city's this letter that you're seeing.
1:45 There is a thank you letter from a former staff member at Austin energy for bringing the idea
1:49 for an electric lawn mow exchange to them in 1996.
1:52 And we did it in 97.
1:53 I picked it up again, uh, working with a nonprofit and then on my own for 10 years
1:58 between 2001 and 2015.
2:01 Next, please, and this is, uh, important, but right now, Austin energy is providing a rebate at point
2:11 of sale, where when you go in to buy an electric lawnmower or handheld equipment, you get a
2:17 certain amount of discount off of it, and that's okay.
2:20 But the mar the program is not well promoted.
2:22 The person sometimes is surprised that they don't, that they are getting a rebate, and many people don't
2:28 need a rebate if the price of the electric lawnmower is $249.
2:35 What I do know is that that program could be revamped or it could just be eliminated.
2:40 And I've spoken on this issue last year at the electric utility commission twice.
2:45 The funding annually that is expended for this is more than $40,000.
2:50 Most year records from three years ago showed it was 51,000 for a 12 or 13 month period.
2:56 The position that was approved by the joint sustainability committee, that's chaired by kaba white, that didn't make
3:02 it past the tre, it was stripped out, is a sustainable procurement position.
3:07 And that position May or May not be funded through the process that you're going for.
3:11 Now, another program that Austin energy has is an e-bike program.
3:17 I mean, early adopter of e-bikes, but the majority of those people talking to a large retailer are
3:22 people that are in a position to buy an electric bicycle without a rebate.
3:27 So my ask is for you to dig into the budget more and find out if there's a
3:31 way to limit or eliminate programs that are not effective to help people of, of lesser means to
3:39 get into an electric lawnmower or an e-bike and see if that funding can be used to support
3:44 the sustainable procurement, uh, fte that was stripped outta the budget from my understanding, after the tre failed.
3:53 This is an opportunity that was championed by Ryan alter's office and supported by others to have two
3:58 new positions in office of climate action and resilience.
4:01 But neither of those, from my understanding, are are there now.
4:04 We need to think creatively.
4:05 We need to look at things more closely, obviously, than, than we did before.
4:09 Thank you for your time.
4:10 Questions. Thank you very much for your testimony.
4:14 Any questions for mr. Johnson?
4:17 Ms. White, thank you. Good morning, kaba white on behalf of public citizens texas office.
4:24 Um, I have two things I wanted to talk to you about.
4:26 Both are related to distributed solar energy.
4:29 Um, the first, um, I've been encountering in my role, uh, with solar Austin, we are trying to
4:35 donate some solar energy systems to other nonprofits here in town to help reduce their cost.
4:41 And, uh, what we have found is that the permitting process and fees for small commercial solar installations,
4:49 which is where this falls for nonprofits, is excessive and, uh, appears to be out of line with
4:56 the actual review that is taking place to get those, that permitting done.
5:00 Um, so it's expensive.
5:02 It is complicated, and it slows the process down.
5:05 And when you look at what solar is being installed, you can have a lot of residential here
5:10 in Austin. And then you have a lot, you know, more of the kinda larger scale commercial.
5:15 But there's this missing bucket, which is the smaller commercial.
5:19 And I think this is probably a big reason why.
5:22 So I know you'll have a, a a a a resolution out that you're waiting to hear back
5:27 from in February about permitting fees.
5:30 And I'm just speaking to this in the hopes that some of y'all will make sure that, uh,
5:36 permitting process and fees for solar, and especially commercial and small commercial solar is part of that review.
5:44 Um, the other piece, uh, that I wanted to call your attention to is about the solar standard
5:49 offer program that is up and running now for commercial, and that is in development for residential and
5:55 hopefully small commercial. Um, I've been hearing from a number of folks that are in the industry wanting
6:02 to participate in this program, that the rate is simply not high enough to make the finances work,
6:09 that there's not really an any, um, money available with, with that budget to be able to pay
6:17 the property owner for the use of their roof space.
6:19 And many property owners are not gonna offer up their roof space for nothing.
6:24 And specifically, I would like to ask that you direct Austin energy to start using the full value
6:30 of solar rate, um, not excluding the environmental social benefits piece of it.
6:37 And also, there is no reason why this type of distributed solar should not be, uh, awarded incentives
6:44 just like other distributed solar.
6:46 It's the exact same thing.
6:48 It's just being financed in a different way.
6:51 So if this is truly a priority in terms of how Austin energy is going to continue to
6:55 get its energy, I think we're gonna need to make some changes in the existing program and in
7:00 what comes forward for the smaller scale installations.
7:04 I will say Austin energy has had a great year with distributed solar.
7:07 That's awesome. Things are about to be changing with the tax credits going away.
7:13 Um, so we need to start, uh, making some changes here locally to prepare for that.
7:18 Thank you. No further speakers.
7:23 That is everyone. Thank you very much.
7:25 Uh, going, um, onto the agenda.
7:29 Uh, item one is the approval of the minutes from the October 7th, 2025 meeting.
7:35 Can I get a motion, a motion by Council Member Siegel and a second by Council Member Ellis
7:41 to approve the minutes.
7:42 Uh, all in favor, please indicate by raise your hand unanimous approval of the minutes.
7:47 Uh, going on to items two is the approval of our 2026 meeting schedule.
7:52 It is in your backup packet.
7:53 We're looking at six meetings for 2026, January, March, May, July, September, and November.
8:00 Um, and again, I would ask for a, uh, motion and a second, a motion from, uh, council
8:05 member uchin and a second from Council Member Ellis for approval of our 2026 meeting schedule.
8:11 All those in favor please indicate by, uh, unanimous, uh, approval of the 2026 meeting schedule.
8:19 And, uh, item three is a general manager's report by, uh, mistakenly, uh, written as interim general manager,
8:28 stuart o'reilly. Uh, he, there's congratulations in order, uh, to, uh, mr. Stuart reilly, who is now our, uh,
8:36 full-time permanent, uh, general manager.
8:38 And, uh, I just want to give him, uh, uh, hardy congratulations from myself and I think from,
8:43 from everybody, uh, on the day.
8:45 Thank, kate. Thank you.
8:46 Appreciate it. Well, thank you so much.
8:51 Um, that tells you how far in advance we do these agendas, uh, take some planning.
8:55 So, uh, I appreciate that.
8:57 And, um, with this being my first meeting and in the permanent role, I just wanna say what
9:01 a privilege it is, um, to be leading one of the nation's premier public power utilities.
9:06 We have an amazing team of electric utility professionals at Austin energy, and I'm, I'm thrilled to continue
9:12 to work alongside all of them, alongside all of you, our community stakeholders, our customers, and meeting our
9:18 ambitious clean energy goals.
9:20 So, look forward to it.
9:21 Um, lots ahead. So thank you.
9:23 Um, I will just get right into it.
9:25 Um, first update is a few weeks ago we executed a contract for 100 megawatt battery storage project
9:32 with jupiter power. Um, this is a utility scale energy storage project that is located, will be located
9:40 within the Austin energy load zone in eastern travis county.
9:44 Um, one thing that's noteworthy is this is a four hour storage system.
9:48 And so that puts us in truly elite company.
9:51 Uh, most battery storage systems in ercot are one hour or two hour energy storage systems.
9:56 By having a four hour utility scale battery storage system, we're able to more effectively take advantage of
10:03 some of the market opportunities that might present themselves for four hour duration.
10:07 Um, really support resiliency, reliability, and affordability for our customers, especially in those critical, um, sundown periods late
10:14 in the day. Um, very excited about that.
10:17 Um, local energy support, um, really good for customers, good for reliability, and we're looking to do that
10:24 in a way that, um, we can continue that momentum.
10:27 We are now working on other energy storage efforts.
10:31 Uh, don't have any news on that today, but hopefully in the coming months we'll have some more,
10:35 um, positive developments in the energy storage space.
10:40 Also wanted to mention two renewable requests for proposals that are out on the street right now.
10:44 One is a landfill solar rfp.
10:47 This is a partnership between Austin energy and Austin resource recovery to make the city of Austin fm
10:52 eight 12 landfill a productive renewable energy site.
10:56 So we're seeking proposals for utility scale solar at that landfill.
11:01 Also, we have a renewable rfp out for wind energy seeking proposals for, uh, shovel ready wind energy
11:09 projects with the tax incentives expiring.
11:11 Our hope is that there are some good opportunities to get some more renewable energy into our portfolio,
11:18 um, with some developers that might be looking for off takers with a, with a short timeline ahead
11:22 of ahead of us.
11:24 And we are accepting offers either with or without onsite battery storage pairings.
11:28 Um, so we're hoping to get some good offers there as well.
11:32 Um, changing gears. We have the newest affordability data from the us energy information administration.
11:40 And you can see on this chart that Austin energy's residential average monthly bill is for.
11:46 And there, I should say there's a little bit of a lag in this information.
11:49 So this comes out in October of each year for the prior year.
11:52 So this is 2024 data.
11:55 Um, but you can see here our average residential monthly bill is $105.
12:00 Um, the only cheaper utility is el paso.
12:04 Um, but it's worth noting that el paso isn't within ercot.
12:07 In fact, of the four cheapest utilities on this list, only Austin energy is within ercot.
12:13 And so being in ercot faced some additional cost pressures, um, that non ercot utilities aren't subject to.
12:19 Um, so that makes us the cheapest residential monthly bill in all of ercot.
12:25 And actually, you can see from that black line that shows the texas average.
12:29 And so we are not only the lowest bill in ercot with we and the second lowest bill
12:34 in texas, but we are $60 less per month than the texas average.
12:39 That means we're saving our customers $720 per year from the texas average.
12:47 So some, some really good data there just shows our continued focus on reliability.
12:51 And you get a lot for your bill in Austin.
12:53 A lot of customer programs, um, renewable programs, a renew a largely renewable portfolio.
12:59 And so a lot goes into that number.
13:01 And our customers are, are getting great value.
13:04 And my last update, I mentioned in October that our crews had deployed for our annual lightup navajo