Austin Chronicle: Twisting in the Wind
This weeks cover story in the Austin Chronicle, “Twisting in the Wind – Austin Energy is all tangled up in smoke and wind mills over energy pricing”, provides a glimpse into the ongoing debate over Austin’s energy policy. Author Nora Ankrum effectively describes the complexity of the choices at hand (from electricity pricing to determining our city’s future energy mix), representing points of view of all stakeholders and explaining nuanced arguments of consumer rights advocates, utility administrators, and industrial power costumers alike. Also, she points out that stakeholders not only understand the difficulty of the task ahead when it comes to shaping Austin’s energy future but also agree that more transparency is necessary — a point which PowerSmack.org supports.
With regard to the public input Austin Energy has solicited, Ankrum quotes John Sutton, a representative of the Building Owners and Managers Association and a member of the Generation Resource Planning Task Force, as saying: “Are they just letting us blab away and patting us on the head and then doing what they want to?”
Meanwhile in his article in the Austin American-Statesman, Marty Toohey sees Austin’s City Council implementing a policy shift in the ongoing discussion over Austin Energy’s GreenChoice program, and implementing a significant reduction in green rates stemming from issues identified by PowerSmack.org. Toohey writes: “The council unanimously approved a lower price for GreenChoice, the landmark city program that sells wind-generated electricity to customers who choose to sign up for it. As part of that decision, the council also enacted a policy shift: spreading a small part of the wind-power cost among all customers, instead of exclusively among GreenChoice customers.”
