Bill McCann

Pressure is mounting against Austin Energy’s proposed electric rate increase and could begin to boil over at a City Council work session today.   In recent days Mayor Lee Leffingwell came out against the rate increase. Meanwhile, a group of Austin Energy residential ratepayers living outside the city has formally organized for a possible fight […]

Austin Energy is about one-third of the way to achieving the city’s ambitious goal of saving 800 megawatts of peak customer power demands by 2020, according to utility documents.    Utility officials say the efforts to date are a good start, but there is a long, hard road ahead. If the goal is met, it […]

Warning that Austin Energy faces a possible revenue shortfall of $2 million a week in 2012, the advisory Electric Utility Commission has recommended that the City Council move quickly on setting new electric rates.     The seven-member commission voted 4-2 on Monday, with Commissioner Shudde Fath abstaining, in support of a resolution by Commissioner […]

Austin Energy officials made their formal case for an electric rate increase to the City Council on Wednesday, prompting wide-ranging questions from members seeking to understand the complex rate package and its potential impact on customers.   The package presented to the Council was very similar to the proposal rolled out by the utility initially […]

As pressure builds for the City of Austin to end its participation in the coal-fired Fayette Power Project, Austin Energy is looking for answers to what such a major change would mean to the utility’s operations and to its ratepayers.   To help get those answers, Austin Energy has begun preliminary data gathering for a […]

As Austin Energy prepares to pull power from the state’s largest solar electric plant in a few weeks, it is considering the possibility of participating in three more solar electric plants over the next eight years.   In fact, Austin Energy has lined up potential sites for three plants roughly 400 miles away in West […]

During more than six hours of discussion, dissension and compromise at two meetings last week, the advisory Electric Utility Commission (EUC) approved a long list of recommendations that largely concurred with Austin Energy’s proposed electric rate package.   But the process was not easy, nor was it pretty, especially the debate over some of the […]

The advisory Electric Utility Commission (EUC) on Monday recommended that more than $20 million be cut from Austin Energy’s proposed $1.136 billion revenue requirement that the utility says it needs to operate its system annually.   The recommended cuts include eliminating the roughly $10 million annual costs that the utility pays to operate the city’s […]

How much money does Austin Energy need annually to run its electric system reliably?   That was the $1.136 billion question at a special meeting of the advisory Electric Utility Commission (EUC) on Monday, as more than a dozen representatives of religious groups, hospitals, schools, office buildings, and large businesses took their turn to discuss […]

Larry Weis sums up his first year as general manager of Austin Energy by highlighting accomplishments, frustrations and ongoing challenges.   In a wide-ranging interview with In Fact Daily, Weis says he has moved into his leadership and management role smoothly, and is thrilled with the utility’s efforts this year to bring its wind-energy portfolio […]

In what is likely to focus added attention on Austin Energy’s proposed electric rate increases, representatives of local consumer and other advocacy groups are banding together against the rate structure proposed for residential customers. They argue that the rate structure would be unfair to residential customers, particularly low-end users, and discourage conservation.   But rather […]

An expert rate consultant to Austin Energy has recommended that the utility take a hard look at its revenue requirements – the basis for its proposed electric rate increase – because some of the numbers may be vulnerable if the rate case ends up at the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC).   Gary Goble, […]