Austin Energy reports 67% carbon-free load offset, details resiliency dashboard and transmission plans

Lisa Martin, Austin Energy's chief operating officer, gave a semiannual update on the Resource Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035 and highlighted operational and programmatic progress.

"Here we see our trending progress towards the carbon free goal...FY to date, we're at 67%," Martin said, using the metric that measures the share of customer energy use offset by carbon-free generation. She reiterated the utility's 2035 goal: to offset 100% of customer load with carbon-free resources by that year.

Martin presented official 2025 data showing record-low stack emissions (carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides) and explained that local carbon intensity edged toward the guardrail in 2025 partly because milder weather reduced local generation and outages at the Sandhill combined cycle required greater reliance on other, more carbon-intensive resources.

On customer-energy targets, Martin reported roughly 866 MW of energy-efficiency savings to date with ~109 MW remaining to reach the 2027 goal, 30 MW of thermal-storage capacity installed with 10 MW remaining to the 2030 target, and a strong demand-response showing (55 MW confirmed in a recent summer). She said 199 MW of local solar is installed (about 6 MW short of the 2027 target) and just over 16 MW of local battery storage is operating with 140 MW in development slated to come online by the end of 2027.

Martin also described project highlights: a battery demand-response pilot with 121 enrolled customers and 212 battery units providing ~1.6 MW of discharge capacity; Base Power's initial installations in Austin and an anticipated 40 MW of contracted capacity by midto late 2027; and a planned 138 kV transmission line in ERCOT review expected to add roughly 200 MW of import capacity and target commercial operation in 2029.

Councilmembers asked questions about district cooling, whether Base Power resources are counted toward demand-response totals, and marginal cost differences for higher-voltage transmission upgrades. Martin said district cooling operations are performing well and under financial review, Base Power's resources will be treated as dispatchable generators for battery-storage accounting, and transmission costs will be subject to transmission-cost-of-service review and state permitting processes to determine whether costs should be socialized.