Tuesday, September 22, 2026, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee
The Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee heard one public speaker, Paul Robbins, who asked the Council to audit the finances of Austin Energy's district chilling system and said a promised internal audit had not been delivered. The committee unanimously re-approved corrected minutes from several past meetings (items 1 and 2). General Manager Stuart Riley briefed members on a new ERCOT all-time peak demand record and on the value of public power, saying Austin Energy bills are over $60 per month cheaper than the Texas average and that opting into retail competition would be costly and slow. Chief Financial Officer Stephanie Alca reported third-quarter results, including operating income about 2% under budget, an AA- rating with a stable outlook and 188 days cash on hand. Chief Operating Officer Lisa Martin presented the third-quarter operations report, citing 44% renewable and 63% carbon-free production and average outage duration falling from 86 to under 78 minutes.
0:00 Pro team. Thank you, Mayor.
0:02 I will call the meeting of the Austin energy utility oversight committee to order.
0:08 It is 9 0 1 on September 22nd, 2026.
0:12 Uh, and we have a quorum present.
0:14 Uh, first up, public communications.
0:16 Do we have any speakers this morning?
0:18 Yes, sir. Uh, mary elizabeth and paul robbins.
0:21 Alright, mary elizabeth. Mr. Robbins, you wanna go ahead and start us off?
0:32 Good morning to you.
0:34 Good morning. Uh, Austin energy has been operating a district, district chilling station since 2001, excuse me, a
0:47 district chilling system. Since 2001, there are now six facilities, including three downtown, which chill 73 buildings, including
0:58 this over chilled City Hall.
1:01 These facilities saved 28 megawatts of peak demand.
1:06 Their insured value in 2025 was $274 million.
1:12 You all May remember that in the summer of 2024, Austin energy proposed that the, the sale of
1:19 the system, there was a claim that the system was losing money since it seemed, it seemed concerning
1:28 that a utility with a guaranteed rate of return would be under water.
1:34 The resource management commission that I serve on began investigating.
1:38 We actually prepared a resolution asking council to conduct an audit on the finances of the district chilling
1:46 system. However, uh, lisa martin with Austin energy appeared at our May, 2025 meeting and informed us the utility was
1:56 already working on this.
1:58 She stated that completion of the audit would be delivered on about October 1st, 2025, eight days from now.
2:07 It will have been a year since this audit was promised.
2:12 A month ago. At our commission's August meeting, we asked martin why the audit was not completed.
2:20 We were told the utility had other priorities and it would be done before the end of the
2:25 year. Despite the subject being discussed three times at our meeting, she would not give us a completion
2:32 date. Our commission reluctantly has passed our original resolution asking counsel for an audit of the district chilling
2:42 system. If the utility does not care about the financial success of a $274 million asset, I am trusting
2:52 you will. The system has a stigma hanging over it, and so do the employees who work there.
2:59 It is my intuition that the system is solvent in making money, but we need proof.
3:06 My last statement on this is that I think you all should allow the district chilling system to
3:12 operate independently of Austin energy.
3:15 If you look at the city charter, it is council's purview as to which city department administers austin's
3:23 various programs. If the district chilling system is not a priority to Austin energy, then council can move
3:32 it to a home that cares more about its future.
3:36 Thank you. Thank you.
3:38 Mr. Robs was ms.
3:41 Mary elizabeth? Yes, sir.
3:44 Mary elizabeth. Mary elizabeth.
3:49 I don't think she is here.
3:51 And if she shows up, we'll, we'll get her, uh, comments in, in order.
3:56 All right, uh, then next we have a couple of cleanup items.
4:02 Uh, items one and two are approval of the minutes from several recent meetings.
4:09 Uh, we've seen this in in a couple of other committees, but the city recently did an audit
4:12 of all the committee mini minutes and caught some errors that needed to be, uh, corrected.
4:18 And so we are re-app approving some of the past minutes.
4:21 Uh, item one is to approve the minutes for our July 20, 25 and 2026 meetings.
4:27 Uh, is there a motion, uh, motion from, uh, vice chair Siegel and a second from, uh, Ryan
4:34 from Council Member Alter?
4:36 Um, and all those in favor please indicate by unanimous approval of the minutes.
4:42 Uh, moving on to item two is to approve the minutes from our May 20th, 2025, October 7th, 2025, November 18th, 2025, and January 20th, 2026
4:53 meetings. Uh, again, I would ask for a motion and a motion from Council Member Siegel and a
4:58 second from Council Member, uh, uchin.
5:00 Uh, and all those in favor, uh, uh, minutes from, uh, I, item two are also unanimously approved.
5:08 Um, going on to item three is, uh, general manager's report by general manager, uh, stuart riley.
5:15 Uh, mr. Riley, if you wanna come on up and give us a report.
5:18 We look forward to it.
5:21 Thank you chair. Good morning committee.
5:22 I'm stuart riley, Austin, energy general manager.
5:26 Let's see here. And this morning, I'll start with a quick update on a new peak demand record
5:33 for ercot. Then I'll talk about the value of public power.
5:36 Specifically, there have been some news reports and some other talk about how Austin energy and municipally owned
5:41 utilities generally compared to the retail electric market, that competitive market in texas.
5:46 And so I'll just lay out some information about the value that Austin energy provides and how we
5:50 stack up. So first of all, I just wanted to update this committee that, um, ercot hit a
5:58 new all time peak demand record this July.
6:01 The peak demand record was an increase of about 5,500 megawatts more than just three years ago.
6:08 This is the equivalent of our state's electric grid, adding about the equivalent of two austins to the
6:13 electric grid within a three year span of time.
6:16 And so that new peak demand record has been increasing in recent years.
6:21 You can see here that over the last decade, it has gone up about 20,000 megawatts, and that's
6:26 a 28% increase. And the curve is getting steeper as it's increasing more sharply since 2021.
6:33 This is part of why Austin energy is so focused on our resource generation plan implementation, including utility
6:38 scale batteries, demand response, um, transmission import, capacity improvements, and other measures, uh, that make sure our customers
6:46 are protected from any future supply and demand challenges.
6:52 So, moving into kind of the more lengthy topic of this briefing, uh, and looking at the value
6:57 of public power and what Austin energy provides to our community, I think you all know that Austin
7:02 energy started in 1895 when private utilities did not want to come to Austin.
7:07 And so our city went, uh, forth and, and created an electric utility by building a dam that
7:13 was the largest in the world at that time.
7:15 Um, since then, we've had the wor the first wind contract in texas, the first utility scale solar
7:20 in texas, the only biomass in texas, a green building program.
7:24 That was the model for nationwide green building programs, energy efficiency programs, solar programs that have been, that
7:30 are the model for, for other utilities nationally.
7:33 And all of this has been possible because of our status as a public power utility.
7:39 And, uh, and the rest of this presentation, I'll show you how everything we do is to maximize
7:43 community value, not to maximize profit for distant shareholders.
7:49 Allowing retail competition in our service territory would be very expensive.
7:54 It would be a very long transition with lots of unknowns on how it would even work.
7:59 So what we do know is that it would likely lead to higher rates.
8:02 It would likely lead to worse service, fewer if any money and energy saving programs and retail competition
8:09 from municipal utilities seems to be a solution in search of a problem, because as I'll show you,
8:15 we're more affordable, we're more reliable, and we're more sustainable than the rest of the state.
8:22 So taking a step back a little bit to talk about the competitive market, this, this will just
8:27 kind of, uh, frame this discussion a little bit.
8:30 Uh, for those who aren't aware, in 1999, the texas legislature deregulated areas that did not have a
8:36 co-op or an mou and municipally owned utility like Austin energy and almost all of those co-ops and
8:43 mous decided not to enter or opt into competition.
8:47 Though current law does provide the governing body of these, of these entities to opt in, deregulation then
8:54 became effective in 2002.
8:55 And about 75% of ercot is served by competitive providers.
9:00 And this legislation provided three categories of market participants that you see on this slide.
9:05 Power generation companies or generators, transmission distribution, utilities or tds.
9:11 And retail electric providers are also called reps.
9:15 So the power generation companies or generators, they operate strictly to sell power into the ercot market.
9:21 They generate power and they sell power into the ercot market.
9:23 That's how they make money.
9:25 Transmission and distribution utilities, tds are often called the wires companies.
9:30 Um, they're mostly for-profit monopolies regulated, monopolies regulated by the puc that are awarded a return on equity.
9:39 This is a profit margin that regulators allow these utilities to earn.
9:43 But obviously because there's only one set of wires running down a street or one set of wires
9:47 running through a community, um, customers don't get to choose their tdu, their transmission distribution utility that tdu
9:55 is based on where you live.
9:57 Um, and the tds.
10:00 Um, the tds costs are passed on to customers in their, uh, on their customer bills that are
10:07 provided by the retail electric providers.
10:09 The reps. So the reps are who customers shop for.
10:14 Um, those reps buy electricity from the power generation companies.
10:18 They package them and market them to customers, and they can charge whatever they want for that service.
10:23 But they do have to cover their costs to the power generation companies, and they do have to
10:27 pass through those costs from the tds.
10:29 So the market separated these functions into these discreet areas with companies operating in each of these sectors.
10:37 Of course, Austin energy is somewhat different within the ercot market because unlike in deregulated portions of the
10:42 state, we do it all as a municipally owned utility.
10:45 We in 71 other mous remain vertically integrated.
10:50 So we operate the most diverse power generation portfolio of anybody in ercot.
10:56 We then send that power across our 600 miles of transmission lines, our 12,000 miles of distribution lines,
11:02 and then we provide service to that end customer.
11:05 Our service is u unified and accountable at each level to our customers and to our community.
11:11 And this model provides a unique opportunity for us because it allows us to provide more value to
11:17 our customers. That's because the end point of this slide where you see the customer home, where can
11:21 provide valuable rebate programs or demand response programs that compliment our power generation portfolio, and that helps customers
11:29 reduce. So helping reduce kilowatt hours sold is a better outcome for customers than selling more kilowatt hours.
11:36 And so our customers use by, as a result of this, our customers use far less energy than
11:41 customers across the rest of the state.
11:43 A deregulated broken up model does not have the same incentive built in to help customers achieve better
11:50 outcomes the way that we do.
11:52 And so this slide shows just a few of those ways that we demonstrate the value of being
11:57 able to leverage our all-in-one model to help customers.
12:00 So first of all, in terms of account management, our rates are much more straightforward.
12:04 We don't have rate gimmicks or intro offers that increase big fees for cancellation, big fees for changing
12:11 providers. We have stable rates for everyone that are the same across the board, and they're actually lower
12:17 in the coming fiscal year than they were two years ago.
12:20 And because we're here for the long haul with customers, we worked to avoid disconnections with flexible payment
12:25 arrangements and customer assistance programs.
12:27 There was a recent news report.
12:28 They pointed out that in two 2024, that was the latest year that us energy information administration data
12:34 was available. So in 2024, almost 25% of all texans had been disconnected by their, their utility for
12:41 non-payment. Whereas here in Austin, that rate was only 5.5%.
12:45 And that's because we do our best to get everybody on a payment plan.
12:51 Our utility contact center is a single point of contact for all of your, your utilities.
12:55 And in the competitive market, not only do you not have one unified bill for utilities, but when
13:01 you have a problem, uh, like an outage or other wires problem, you're not even calling your your
13:05 rep, your retail electric provider.
13:07 Uh, that would be for the tdu that's operating there.
13:11 And we serve everyone with, we have customer assistance programs with about 60 community partners that help provide
13:17 wraparound services. And we have specialized services for medically vulnerable customers, including emergency planning for outages.