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Having suckled at the teet of local residents more than adequately this year, Austin Energy's spitting out a little back next year.
Starting January 1st, Austin Energy will cut electricity rates for "most users" by a hefty 8 percent. From Austin Business Journal:
The move comes after the city-owned utility earned more than it expected in November when warm weather caused power users to turn up the AC when they ordinarily would've just opened the windows.Austin Energy spokesman Ed Clark says that, combined with better natural gas prices, have enabled the utility to more closely meet its year-long cost projections and balance the books.
"You try to end up at about zero," he says.
The new fuel rate is expected to be 3.343 cents per kilowatt-hour, down from this year's 3.634 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Meanwhile--and we probably missed this entirely when it first came out--the community-owned electric utility recently teamed up with the Austin History Center to create a nifty photo exhibit entitled "Austin Beginnings," which you can check out below:
We also recently took advantage of their Power Partner free thermostat program, and we're pleased as pie with the results: in exchange for letting them briefly cycle off your air conditioner at peak demand hours during the summer, they'll provide a free programmable thermostat including installation and warranty. This year, they sent out cycling signals about nine times total to the roughly 60,000 thermostats already installed around Austin -- not a whole lot of impact on the individual household, but a big difference overall.
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More exciting news for the long-run is that they're beginning a pilot of BPL (broadband over power lines) which will enable time-of-use billing - a much bigger incentive for spreading out power demand to better match the supply.
I'm in the Power Partner program and love the programmable thermostat. However, they cycled my AC a lot more than 9 times this summer. It was almost every weekday during August from 4pm-8pm, 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. My place didn't finally cool down to 80 degrees until after midnight on those nights. I recommend not going home after work and hitting Barton Springs at night if you join.
Maybe they can take some of that surplus and reduce the $200 deposit for new services to a reasonable amount. Or they can be more progressive with their policies towards low income, elderly and disabled folks: not cutting off their utilities when they can prove they don't have the income to pay it. Austin Energy is WAY behind the rest of nation when it comes to looking out for our most vulnerable populations.