Item 11- Staff briefing and process update on the Resource, Generation, and Climate Protection Plan — original pdf

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Austin Energy's Resource Generation Plan 2035 Workshops Presented by Lynda Rife City of Austin District 2 Residential Customers Tri-City Region Solar and Storage Coalition CCARE Homeowners United for Rate Fairness (HURF) Overview: Workshop #4 • Austin Energy hosted their fourth in a series of workshops on Thurs. Oct. 3, 2024, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. • The goals of Workshop #4 were to provide workshop participants with the results from the surveys taken from Workshop #3, give insight into how Austin Energy will incorporate an equity lens to the Resource Generation Plan 2035, and gather feedback on drafted value and objective statements. Report Out of Workshop #3 Key Takeaways Reliability is the community’s top priority across the board. Equity continues to be a major theme and discussion point throughout the workshops. The impacts of outages can be detrimental to vulnerable communities. Austin Energy’s environmental sustainability leadership should be applauded. Equity – Generally Moving in the Right Direction The three dimensions of energy equity: Procedural equity focuses on ensuring fair, inclusive participation in the decision-making process. • Recognition equity aims to understand and address past and present energy equities. • Distributional equity focuses on just and equitable distribution of benefits and impacts in Austin’s clean energy transition. What we heard: Concerns about the medically vulnerable and encouraging Austin Energy to expand their CAP programs. • • Values Statements* – Generally Moving in the Right Direction Reliability Providing consistent and predictable electric service that will power our community as it continues to grow. Affordability Assessing the fairness and impacts of costs for customers while continuing to provide the public-power benefits that enhance our community’s quality of life. Environmental Sustainability Maintaining flexibility in support of clean and innovative technologies and programs while taking a holistic assessment of the community and environmental impacts. Energy Equity Evaluating and expanding access to the services Austin Energy provides so they can reach those who need them most while understanding the impact of our operations on the community. *Developed based workshop discussions Value Statements – What We Heard • Strengthen words like “understanding” and “assessing” to make the statements more actionable. • Predictability with both reliability and affordability – improve communications to the community. • Include more references to climate change issues. Updated Value Statements* Reliability Providing consistent and predictable electric service that will power our community as it continues to grow. Affordability Assessing the impacts and promoting fairness of costs for customers while continuing to provide the public-power benefits that enhance our community’s quality of life. Environmental Sustainability Maintaining flexibility in support of clean and innovative technologies and programs while taking a holistic assessment of the community and environmental impacts. *Developed based on workshop discussions Energy Equity Evaluating and expanding access to the services Austin Energy provides so they can reach those who need them most while reducing the impact of our operations on the community. Objectives* – Generally Moving in the Right Direction Reliability Prioritize reliability and resilience over other values. Mitigate the risk of statewide and localized system outage events. Limit the exposure of vulnerable populations to outages. Affordability Limit the impact of bill increases to the most vulnerable customers, while allowing acceptable increases of greater than 2% for other customers and maintaining supportable levels of reliability and environmental sustainability. Environmental Sustainability Reduce emissions as much as possible and mitigate any remaining emissions, while supporting affordability and reliability. *Developed based on workshop discussions Objectives – What We Heard • • • • • • • • Use “prioritize reliability” but don’t agree that reliability and resiliency are over other values. Be careful that we aren’t promising 100% reliability. Short-duration outages might be ok. Look at bill impacts today as well as in the future. • When looking at affordability, consider the fees associated with disconnections, or late payments. Clarify the language of “maintaining supportable levels”. Expand “emissions” to include other environmental pollutants or environmental impacts. Expand “environmental sustainability” to include “resource conservation”. Take into account life cycle assessments and full transparency. Not sure what “mitigate remaining emissions means”. Updated Objectives* Reliability Prioritize reliability and resiliency over other values. Mitigate the risk of long- duration statewide and localized system outage events and provide timely communications. Limit the exposure of vulnerable populations to outages. Affordability Limit the impact of bill increases to the most vulnerable customers, while allowing acceptable and predictable increases of greater than 2% for other customers and maintaining supportable levels in support of reliability and environmental sustainability. Environmental Sustainability Reduce emissions and other environmental impacts as much as possible. and mitigate Mitigate any remaining emissions, while supporting affordability and reliability. *Developed based on workshop discussions Key Takeaways from Participants – Overall, A Good Process • Austin Energy has to face a tough balance between all needs. The workshops have been a real eye-opener. • Ensure this plan and the process is communicated to the public. • Climate has to be prioritized – we need to keep climate disasters in mind (i.e., Hurricane Helene). • • Look at nuclear as part of the portfolios. Increase energy efficiency. Participants Comments Cont.* • • “I just wanted to reiterate also about the aging of our community and looking forward to their longevity and stability here in Austin. There are some folks that have been here for 80 years, and they say they can’t take it anymore, can’t afford it, can’t do anything anymore. That’s a sad thing. To save our community. That’s what we got to remember. It’s our community. Let’s do it right.” – Nancy Crowther, ADAPT “…I don’t think we talk about the small business and local operators that are just trying to sustain every day. They are looking at rising costs both from a very good tax rate election that’s coming about but also rising healthcare costs… I want to make sure we’re including in the discussions when we’re talking about marginalized communities that we include our what we call mom-and-mom and pop-and-pop shops.” – Tina Cannon, LGBT Chamber of Commerce *Full comments can be viewed in the Workshop #4 Feedback Summary Participants Comments Cont.* • • “…I think climate has to be a central organizing principle of our utility because we need to do what we can to avoid Hurricane Helene and the millions of climate refugees that global warming is causing. I am perfectly happy to lose power for a few hours a year if it means we’re avoiding polluting the planet. At the same time, we need to absolutely protect the medically fragile.” – Luke Metzger, Environment Texas “…[Austin Energy] has a great plan and have had a big room with good conversations… I would love to see better engagement and dialogue between the utility and the community so that the broader Austin community, businesses/residential/commercial/etc., is aware of what’s going on and feels like they know how to engage with their utility provider when they have issues, questions and things are going on.” – Carmen Tilton, Texas Assisted Living Association *Full comments can be viewed in the Workshop #4 Feedback Summary Partnership Continues • • Inform and educate the organization and communities you represent of what you’ve learned and the work you’ve done in these workshops. • Reach out if there are events that you would like Austin Energy to attend. Provide comments to the Electric Utility Commission (EUC) and City Council. • Austin Energy will keep them updated regarding the Resource Generation Plan 2035 development process. Thank You