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Tag Archives: Austin Energy

Austin Energy’s proposed rate increase would hit lower-use residential customers hardest

Austin Energy recently launched a public input process to collect feedback on a proposal to increase its base rates by 7.6 percent. The city-owned utility says the price hike is necessary to balance a $48 million shortfall between its costs…

Austin Energy wants to raise its rates. Here's how you can give feedback.

Residential customers could see a nearly $16 bump in their monthly electric bills under a rate hike proposed by Austin Energy. But before it can raise base rates, the city-owned utility must first go through a public input process. Austin…

Austin Energy seeks to bridge revenue gap through changes to service costs

Austin Energy customers can anticipate changes to their bills in the near future, as the utility gears up to revise its base rate charges by 2023. Russell Maenius, vice president of finance, and Tammy Cooper, vice president of communications, spoke…

Auditors find few faults with utility bill assistance program

Austin Energy, which manages billings for city utility customers, provides reduced utility bills for more than 35,000 electric, water and wastewater customers with low incomes. The Customer Assistance Program offers discounts that average about $650 a year for residential customers…

Austin Energy's REACH program falls behind its carbon emissions goals

Austin Energy announced last week that it is significantly behind its goals for reducing carbon emissions this year, citing operational and market factors. While the utility hopes to make up some of the gap between now and the end of the…

City presents long-awaited follow-up on Winter Storm Uri

As Austin prepares for colder temperatures, a coalition of teams led by the city’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has finalized its after-action report on February’s Winter Storm Uri. Staying well past 10 p.m. last Thursday, City Council…

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Austin will keep running Fayette coal power plant, missing key climate goal

Austin Energy will not retire its stake in the Fayette coal power plant next year, the publicly owned electric utility announced Monday. Shutting down its portion of the plant by 2022 had been a key part of the city’s climate…

In the wake of Uri, solar battery sales soar

Seven months after Winter Storm Uri caused the deaths of more than 200 people around Texas and left millions without power, demand for solar power and home battery systems has skyrocketed. Austin Energy has received more requests for solar panel…

A new Austin Energy rule aims to keep construction workers safe. It could also make homes harder to build.

In response to the death by electrocution of a construction worker and a subsequent lawsuit, Austin Energy has increased the minimum distance between power lines and new buildings, a regulation the utility says will keep workers safer. A jury in…

Auditors to look at Austin Energy's customer assistance program

Three members of the City Council Audit & Finance Committee want City Auditor Corrie Stokes to look into whether an Austin Energy program that offers bill relief to utility customers is helping the right people. According to a spokesperson for…

Report: Ex-AE employee misused city resources, lied to auditors

An investigation by the Office of the City Auditor found that a former utility accounts specialist at Austin Energy misused his city computer and email to benefit his secondary employment and failed to do work assigned to him, forcing the…

Austin Energy leader insists utility is resilient

While Sidney Jackson, Austin Energy’s deputy general manager and COO, told City Council the “system is resilient,” utility customers who went without power for three days might disagree. By Saturday night, power had been restored to 88 percent of the…

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