Opinion: A Generation Plan for the Next Generation

Is 90 the new 80? Is 100 the new normal? No, I’m not talking about aging gracefully, I’m talking about our climate. Just this October, Austin’s average high temperature was 91.6° – a whopping 6.4 warmer than normal. Even though this summer felt “mild” compared to the extreme summers we’ve somehow normalized in our minds, we are once again on track to experience the hottest year on record. That’s, of course, after breaking the record last year, and the year before that, and... I think you get it.

Climate change is here and it impacts everything. It has made daily life more expensive, more dangerous, and more difficult. From threatening our water supply to increased insurance, food, and energy costs, we can’t ignore the growing harms on everyday people. And rather than fully investing in abundant, clean, and cheap energy solutions like solar power, we continue to double down on the dirty, outdated, and expensive power sources that created the problem.

That’s where the upcoming Austin Energy generation plan comes into play. Every few years, the City Council approves a generation plan, which directs how our municipally owned utility will keep the lights on for our community. Under the current plan, Austin Energy generates power through a combination of sources, with an emphasis on carbon-free generation – wind, solar, and nuclear. However, even as clean energy has become cheaper and more reliable, we also continue to heavily rely on very dirty sources, including coal and natural gas.

The Council is now considering what that mix should look like over the next 10 years. This is a serious decision that will impact many aspects of our lives, and we owe it to the public to approve a plan that is reliable, affordable, and increasingly sustainable. Fortunately, we don’t have to sacrifice or compromise on any of these goals.

We have all experienced the vulnerabilities in our power grid. From devastating winter storms to routine home outages, it feels like we are dealing with these issues more and more. However, reliability problems are mainly due to issues with our distribution system (think downed power lines or blown transformers) and extreme weather, not a lack of reliable generation. Solving our reliability problems requires smarter infrastructure (like burying power lines – something I called for increasing last year) and better trimming trees, not building more fossil-fuel power plants. New gas plants wouldn’t have kept the lights on during Uri and wouldn’t have prevented the mass outages we saw when Mara took down a third of our tree canopy and thousands of power lines with it.

Investing in reliable and abundant carbon-free power like solar, wind, and batteries is not just good for the environment, it’s greener for your wallet. When comparing the various options for meeting the next decade’s energy needs, we basically have two sets of tools – lowering the amount of electricity we use through advancements in energy efficiency and demand response and increasing the amount of electricity we make. Our own data show that option one, reducing peak demand, is not only the cheapest, but also the one that we can deploy the fastest. Additionally, it reduces the need for dirty generation and lowers energy bills for our customer in the process. And when we do increase our power supply, which we know is also part of the equation, advanced technology and evolving economics now reward us for investing in generation methods that don’t pump carbon and other dangerous chemicals into our air and communities.

I am proud of the public servants at Austin Energy who make our utility one of the greenest in the country producing some of the cheapest and most reliable power in Texas. And I deeply appreciate the public for their passionate engagement and urgent calls for us to do more. I’ve dug into the numbers and listened to stakeholders on all sides, and I don’t believe we must continue to pollute to prosper. If anything, the opposite is true. We have the tools, the technology, the creativity, and the leadership to approve a generation plan that is more affordable, more reliable, and more sustainable than what we have today. Rather than tying ourselves to carbon for the next decade, Austin should choose to take the next step; choose more solar, batteries, energy savings, and clean communities. Rather than continuing to rely on the dirty power of the past, let’s dedicate this generation plan to the next generation.

Ryan Alter has represented District 5 on the Austin City Council since 2023. As a working dad, he has been a champion to create more opportunities and prosperity not just for today, but generations to come. He led on creating the Environmental Investment Plan and other policies that ensure we have clean air, fresh water, and abundant natural space to enjoy, and will continue to relentlessly push to protect our environment.