More Wind and Solar Part of Austin Energy’s Plan, But Coal and More Gas Too
By Axel Gerdau for PowerSmack.org
Austin’s energy future will be greener, but at least until 2020 it should also include electricity from coal, widely regarded as the world’s dirtiest fuel. That’s what senior staff at Austin Energy are suggesting to the city’s policy makers and the public. After meeting with members of City Council and the Mayor’s office last week, utility administrators sought to explain their proposal for the city’s “Resource and Climate Protection Plan” on Tuesday, September 1, during the first of two town hall meetings this month. The proposal details how the utility plans to supply power to more than 400,000 customers in the greater Austin area over the next 12 years and has already drawn criticism from environmental groups.
“The good news is that we should be able to meet the expected increase in demand for electricity without building additional power plants”, said Austin Energy General Manager Roger Duncan at the beginning of his hour-long presentation in front of a capacity crowd of 60 people: “Our main challenge is changing the generation mix to reduce our CO2 footprint and increasing the amount of renewable energy in our system.”
In order to reduce system wide emissions of the greenhouse gas in anticipation of federal climate change legislation, Duncan and his staff want to use more energy from wind (765 extra Megawatts), solar (200 MW), and biomass (150 MW) plants. Also, the utility plans to emphasize energy efficiency measures in buildings and within the electric grid. Duncan: “The cheapest electricity is that electricity we conserve.” These steps would simultaneously help Austin Energy exceed City Council’s goal of establishing a renewable energy portfolio that generates more than 30 percent of the city’s power, said Duncan: “We would get more than 36 percent of our electricity from renewable sources in 2020.” Currently, only 12 percent of Austin’s energy mix comes from renewable technology, nearly all of it from wind (439 MW).
In addition to purchasing more renewable energy, the utility plans to install additional generation capacity at its Sand Hill Power Plant. The technologies burn natural gas more cleanly than older plants and can come on-line quickly when variable sources of power such as wind and solar produce less electricity or when coal, gas and nuclear plants break down unexpectedly.
However, the utility is also proposing to hang on to the Fayette Power Project (FPP), which Austin Energy owns jointly with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA). Today the 30-year-old coal-fired power plant outside of La Grange, Texas, produces 32 percent of the city’s electricity but emits 70 percent of its CO2 and nearly 100 percent of its mercury, a pollutant linked to autism in children and other negative health impacts. Instead of shutting down the plant completely or selling it off – Duncan: “Neither option would be simple due to contractual obligations with the LCRA and regulations within the Texas energy grid” – Austin Energy is proposing to reduce power production of the plant by one third until 2020 as a prelude to getting rid of it one way or another.
This decision prompted criticism from environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Environment Texas, and Public Citizen. In a joint statement issued just hours before the town hall meeting on Monday, the organizations wrote: “All of Austin’s environmental organizations agree. Austin needs to quit coal. Austin Energy’s recent proposed plan is going in the right direction but we can go further sooner.” Emphasizing that coal power has increased significantly in price recently, the authors of the statement conclude: “We don’t need coal to keep the lights on and we can quit coal in a way that’s fair to ratepayers.”
When asked about the utility’s decision to keep FPP running for another 12 years in light of the plant’s impact on public health, Duncan responded that Austin Energy had not taken such “externalities” into consideration, because there “currently is no accurate way of doing so.” As for the coal plant’s significant CO2 emissions, Duncan said that, in the short term, it would probably be cheaper to emit carbon dioxide and purchase so called carbon off-sets: “Plus we currently sell excess power from Fayette on the electricity market. Shutting down the plant would mean leaving millions of dollars on the table.”
Austin Energy’s next town hall meeting will start at 6pm on September 23 at City Hall, where Austin’s public servants will debate our energy future in the weeks to come.
