Tuesday, May 19, 2026, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee
The Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee met May 19, 2026, chaired by Council Member Vela with Vice Chair Siegel, and heard from five public speakers on Austin Energy generation proposals and electric rates. The committee approved minutes from March 24, 2026, and received the general manager's report from Stuart Riley covering the annual report, ERCOT load forecasts, and recent clean energy contracts. Briefings followed on Austin Energy's transmission planning process and capital improvements (David Tom Chesnoff) and on implementation of the Resource Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035 (Lisa Martin, with Linda Rif on community engagement), including staff's recommendation to add two wind contracts, a third battery project, and approximately 400 megawatts of new natural gas peaker units, with council action anticipated Thursday. Council members questioned staff extensively on battery duration and economics, emissions guardrails, transmission import capacity, peaker siting, and the Fayette power plant. The chair adjourned the committee at 11:14 to continue discussion in a work session.
0:00 Thank you, Mayor. I will call to order the May 19th, 2026 meeting of the Austin energy utility oversight committee
0:08 at 9 0 2. Uh, we have a packed agenda both on the work session and on the, uh, committee
0:16 today. Um, because of that, we will not have, uh, public presentations on the quarterly financial operations reports.
0:22 They are in the backup.
0:24 Uh, but just in the interest of time and, and moving through the meeting, we're gonna go ahead
0:28 and, uh, uh, uh, just have those on paper and not have public presentations.
0:33 Uh, ae staff is here in the room.
0:35 If y'all have any questions, please, uh, touch base with them or please communicate with us.
0:40 And then first up, we'll start with our public communication with the clerk.
0:44 Please call the speakers.
0:46 Yes, sir. Um, we have five speakers starting with hayden bagot, second trey salinas, third, paul robbins,
0:59 Mayor Watson, chair Vela council members.
1:02 My name is hayden bagot and I'm here representing the coalition for clean, affordable, reliable energy or ccare.
1:09 I'm also a district nine resident.
1:11 I'm here to firmly support the Austin energy generation proposals that are up for your consideration this Thursday
1:17 on the wind. Ppa ccare is very much in the pro renewable camp and encourages continued investment and
1:22 sustainable power. These resources are abundant and push prices lower, and it's promising that they're meeting larger shares
1:29 of statewide demand. This investment also comes in the nick of time with wind and solar tax credits
1:34 expiring soon on the battery contract.
1:38 Your approval on Thursday would put Austin energy well above its 2027 goal and close to its 2030
1:43 goal of 300 megawatts.
1:46 As ercot continues to break battery discharge records, the benefits are increasingly clear.
1:51 Batteries ramp up to balance short-term demand spikes serve as an effective tool in the market and provide
1:56 an additional buffer from emissions.
1:59 But it's the limitations of these two resources and other renewables that make the final item so essential
2:04 to our electric utility.
2:06 That's where gas peakers step in peakers are a last resort and insurance measure against long duration high
2:12 demand events working to mitigate congestion costs and correct the reliability challenges our local grid routinely experiences, whether
2:21 it's providing voltage support, offsetting price separation, expediting transmission investments, or being blackstar capable batteries in their current
2:29 form aren't able to meet these needs when they run dry.
2:33 That's why the modeling shows more than 10 times the reliability risk hours and double the financial risk
2:38 without peakers. That's why residential electric bills are projected to be twice as much if you solely rely
2:44 on batteries for local dispatchable generation.
2:47 Simply put peakers help fill in the gaps when local power supply falls short.
2:51 Thank you. Good morning.
2:57 Uh, chairman Vela, members of the, uh, oversight committee and City Council.
3:01 My name is trey salinas.
3:03 I'm a chamber of commerce board member, but also here today on behalf of the coalition for clean,
3:08 affordable, and reliable energy, which is essentially a coalition of your commercial and industrial customers.
3:16 And commercial is everything from a small flower shop, bowling alley, coffee shop to advanced manufacturing.
3:23 It's all of it.
3:25 Um, we're gonna, I'm gonna save most of my comments for Thursday.
3:28 We'd like to see how the discussion goes today, but as hayden just pointed out, and I wanna
3:33 stress, um, ccare has been proud to support your renewable energy plans for more than 20 years now.
3:41 We have testified multiple times in favor of renewable contracts, batteries, all of it, and we look forward
3:47 to continuing that support in the future.
3:50 But as you just heard, peakers are gonna be an important part of the balance.
3:55 So with that, I wanted to let you know that, uh, myself, hayden, a couple of other utility
4:00 experts, uh, from the community chamber and others are here today for the oversight committee, the work session.
4:08 We're just signed up one time, but just to let you know that if you have questions of
4:13 the commercial and industrial classes, we're here.
4:15 Thank you.
4:20 Our last three speakers are paul robbins, stephanie chavez, and jen craig are counsel.
4:30 Uh, this is a short speech on residential.
4:33 Uh, could you please cue the presentation?
4:35 This is a short speech on residential electric rates and electric rate transparency.
4:42 Could you please cue the presentation?
4:49 Okay. Can you start my time?
4:55 Uh, can you start my time please?
4:58 Okay. This is a short speech on residential electric rates and electric rate transparency slide between 22 and
5:08 2022 and 2026. Austin energy's residential electric rates rose 29%, but due to the regressive nature of the
5:19 rate design rates rose unequally in various council districts while they rose 20% in district 10, they rose
5:27 between 31 and 34% in districts 3, 4, 6, 7, and nine slide.
5:38 These regressive rates adversely affect the majority of rate payers in every single council district, ranging from 63%
5:48 with above average rate increases in district 10 to 81% in district nine, they pay more.
5:57 So people in large air conditioned homes can have lower rate increases.
6:03 Slide one reason is that the monthly customer charges went up while rate tiers with higher consumption stayed
6:11 flat in 2025. This chart compares customer charges in large texas municipal utilities.
6:20 Austin energy is considerably higher slide.
6:25 During the last budget, the public was told that even though rates would go up, fuel would go
6:31 down and hence bills will go down, would go down.
6:35 This slide shows that Austin energy's claimed of the claimed fuel cost was 5.30 cents per kilowatt hour.
6:45 It's what they presented in the budget slide, but in fact, according to this memo, it was 4.35 cents,
6:53 meaning that bills were actually higher this year than last year slide.
6:59 The plain fact is Austin energy hates progressive rates that encourage conservation and health report.
7:07 Here is the utilities rate proposal in 2022.
7:11 On the left, you see a differential of 8 cents per kilowatt hour between the lowest and highest tiers,
7:19 uh, for existing for the existing rate.
7:22 And on the right, Austin energy's proposal recommended only a 1 cent differential per kilowatt hour slide.
7:32 The resource management commission recommends that going forward rate increases should be the same on the monthly customer
7:40 charge and all four consumption tiers.
7:44 This will even out increases in council districts.
7:48 We recommend future rate increased proposals, show how they affect each district, and we recommend a full rate
7:56 case this year, if at all possible.
7:58 Um, final slide. Uh, I remind you that Austin energy is more than a business.
8:04 People are. Its real.
8:06 Bottom line. Thank you.
8:18 My name is stephanie.
8:19 I live in district eight.
8:20 I'm a mother of two.
8:21 I work in Austin as an educator and artist, a partner with families, young people, parents, climate community.
8:27 And I'm a volunteer on the local clean air coalition.
8:31 I ask council to pause the gas peaker proposal until an independent third public third party analysis is
8:37 released that compares carbon free alternatives and fully quantifies health and climate and economic impacts.
8:44 Austin energy must follow procurement and public notice rules.
8:48 The scale of investment cannot be decided behind closed doors or by a handful of people without full
8:54 transparency to everyone, including rate payers.
8:58 These gas peakers are being shortlisted for communities already burdened by environmental justice in the resource generation and
9:05 climate protection plan. It states that the sites for new infrastructure would aim to avoid historically impact impacted
9:11 communities, and that is not happening.
9:15 Decker creek power station sits directly across the street from two elementary schools, a middle school, multiple apartment
9:23 complexes, and growing residential neighborhoods on an especially hot ast af Austin afternoon.
9:29 When kids are walking home or playing outside, peakers will cycle on and release the highest amount of
9:35 toxin in toxins into the air.
9:38 And the hotter the day is the lower the particulate matter hangs around one worsening region wide air
9:45 quality. Children breathe faster, their lungs are smaller, their defense mechanisms are still developing, and they absorb more
9:53 pollution per body mass, and they face higher risks of respiratory harm and impacts to cognitive and developmental
10:01 health from nox and fine particulates.
10:04 There's an economic story here too.
10:07 Relying on more fossil fuel peakers risks, higher long-term costs for rate payers and would compromise austin's path
10:14 to a hundred percent carbon free by 2035.
10:17 The price tag for this build out is too large to be disclosed to just a few.
10:22 Council must make the models and assumptions public and include health and climate, uh, externalities.
10:30 As an artist, I believe in imagining better futures.
10:33 There are creative and proven options.
10:36 Utility scale batteries, demand response, virtual power plants, deep efficiency, all things that must be scaled and deployed.
10:45 The cheapest energy is the energy we don't use.
10:47 And energy solutions like these protect children's health, advance our climate goals and, and steward public dollars responsibly.
10:56 Please pause. This proposal require a transparent third party feasibility and cost analysis that includes health and economic
11:03 impacts, and fully explore carbon free alternatives.
11:06 Before committing taxpayer funds, we need to choose clean innovation over outdated fossil fuel infrastructure, protect children's health,
11:16 and avoid increasing ec economic impacts for the entire community.
11:19 Thank you. Thank you very much.
11:23 Our last speaker, jen craig gar.
11:29 Good morning. My name is jen krieger.
11:31 I'm a district four residents.
11:33 I'm asking you to vote a resounding no on Austin energy's rushed and imp prudent requests for spending
11:40 my and all of your rate payer dollars on polluting and increasingly expensive gas fired peaker plants.
11:48 There are many financial and good governance reasons why your vote on Thursday should be a hard no.
11:54 I'm going to defer to others to share those concerns and instead focus on our existing climate and
11:59 clean air commitments that I have personally worked on.
12:02 Going back to 2007, the Austin climate equity plan documents our community's commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse
12:10 gas emissions by 2040 and identify specific strategies to get us there.
12:15 Ideally by 2030, Austin energy's generation plan is supposed to be its contribution towards this community-wide carbon reduction
12:24 commitment. Unfortunately, in 2024, the most recent year for which complete public data is available, we were 51%
12:34 above our emissions target and pumping out co2 emissions equivalent to burning nearly 13 billion pounds of coal in
12:43 just one year. Right here in Austin, 41% of those emissions came from producing electricity and burning natural
12:51 gas. So we're off track.
12:54 We are really far off track, and Austin energy is proposing worsening our situation by introducing a brand
13:02 new source of carbon emissions and the form of up to 400 megawatts of new gas peaker plants,
13:08 of which we know virtually nothing.
13:11 Austin energy is trying to justify this new investment in fossil fuels by saying that the new gas
13:17 plants that they plan to build will be more efficient and therefore less polluting than the existing ones
13:22 they already have. It's true that these new units, if approved, would have a lower emissions rate, but
13:29 what they're not saying is that the proposed new gas peakers will be far more competitive in the
13:34 ercot market and therefore will run more than the existing units that are more expensive to operate.
13:39 And at the very pickiest times, both the requested new units and the older dirtier units will run
13:46 unless further constraints are imposed, like requiring the old units to be retired or updating the emissions guardrails
13:53 from the gen plan to use a rolling average emissions baseline to drive continuous improvement without constraints like
14:00 these, Austin energy will likely burn much more gas, even if doing so more efficiently and end up
14:06 blowing our climate and air quality goals.
14:09 So before considering Austin energy's gas peaker proposal, further, I'm asking you Mayor and council to require a