Debate Heats Up Over How to Wean Austin Off Fossil Fuels

The Fayette Power Project near La Grange (courtesy of Lower Colorado River Authority)

Austin Energy is almost done tweaking its Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan for net zero by 2035, but before it can present the plan to City Council for approval, the Electric Utility Commission’s working group must make its final recommendations. There’s just one problem: The group suspects a fundamental part of AE’s plan could actually make pollution worse, while costing the city a pretty penny to implement.

The EUC group in question is an interesting mix. It includes EUC members, as you might expect, but also community organizations like Foundation Communities and Sunrise Austin, as well as large AE customers like Samsung.

The group understands that AE faces a hard road ahead in getting off fossil fuels in time to meet its 2035 goal, while finding replacement resources able to provide reliable electricity to Austin’s ever-growing population. But it has one big quibble with AE’s proposed path to get there: its reliance on an investment in hydrogen power to replace fossil fuels. Sierra Club’s Cyrus Reed, a member of the working group, calls hydrogen power “an underdeveloped and unproven technology.”

AE’s ability to kick fossil fuels is complicated by many forces outside its control. The city can’t reach its climate goals unless AE eliminates the emissions that come from the coal-powered Fayette Power Project and the Decker and Sand Hill gas plants – Fayette alone accounts for 29% of the entire city’s emissions. Because the Lower Colorado River Authority has blocked AE from being able to decommission its share of Fayette, AE has tried to rely on Fayette less to inch toward the city’s climate goals, but the plant is still running more than it needs to, according to the working group. Transmission line congestion, climate change-driven rising heat, market forces, and policy decisions by the Legislature intended to boost the oil industry have further driven up costs.

The working group offers some solutions to make the transition easier, like federal funding for economically disadvantaged areas where fossil fuel plants are retiring (available through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). If the coal-powered Fayette Power Project were decommissioned, AE would be eligible for these funds. The working group recommends AE replace Fayette and gas plants Decker and Sand Hill with renewables and scale up batteries and local solar – which AE is already planning to do – but it also recommends AE implement more energy efficiency and demand response programs (which allow customers to control their energy usage, driving down demand for AE).

The working group says these options are far superior to AE’s proposed reliance on hydrogen to close the gap. The group argues that AE’s modeling is far too optimistic about hydrogen’s availability and cost, which the working group’s presentation calls “unrealistic” based on a few factors: There is no available hydrogen created from zero-emissions sources in Texas today; it would take years to build out pipeline infrastructure to take that energy to Austin; and hydrogen produces harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx) at a higher rate than natural gas, which would actually increase pollution locally. That extra pollution, even in the short term, would be a problem, as Austin currently violates federal health standards for ozone and particulate matter, and is at risk of an ozone nonattainment designation, which would come with economic costs.

Austin Energy was not ready to present its final plan Monday, so a decision will not be made by the EUC until its next meeting, March 18. City Council is set to vote on the plan by late March, but that date could be extended out further depending on AE’s readiness.