Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee (AEUOC) Meeting Transcript – 1/28/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 1/28/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 1/28/2025 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. >> Thank you very much, mayor. It's a pleasure and honor to serve as the chair of the Austin energy utility oversight committee. Let me go ahead and call the meeting to order. At 914. A quorum is present, and let's first turn to public communication. Do we have any speakers? >> No. >> No speakers. All right, well, then let's go ahead and call item number one, approval of the minutes from the November 19th meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Council member qadri motions and council member harper-madison seconds. Any objections to the passage of the minutes? None. Then the minutes are approved. Let's go ahead and then go to. We'll call up items two, three and four, which will be the general manager's report. General [9:15:40 AM] manager's report. General manager, Mr. Bob Kahn, please go ahead and present your report, sir. >> Thank you. Good morning. Happy new year. Welcome to our first committee meeting of the year. And I want to welcome our new leadership chair, Tito vela and vice chair Mike Siegel. There you are. Hello. I also want to welcome our new other new committee members. Krista Laine district six, Mike Siegel, district seven and Marc duchen district ten. Welcome. So I want to talk a little bit about some grants and awards we've received recently. You probably saw that news release that Austin energy received a $15 million grant to expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure with a focus on equity and accessibility. The grant is from the U.S. Department of transportation. Through the charging and fueling [9:16:42 AM] Through the charging and fueling infrastructure program. Over the next five years. The grant is designed to provide essential ev charging infrastructure in underserved areas, bridging critical gaps and benefiting historically underinvested neighborhoods. Note, however, that the status of this grant is uncertain. Under a recent executive order from the new administration. We'll keep you updated. We also received the fleet innovator award for alternative alternative fuels by the central Texas clean cities. This award recognizes Austin energy's and the city of Austin's leadership to electrify the city's fleet through charging infrastructure deployment, along with strategic planning to reduce emissions to our city and the award notification, central Texas clean cities said, and I quote, we are proud to recognize Austin energy's efforts to promote [9:17:43 AM] energy's efforts to promote clean air and advanced clean transportation and technologies for future generations. Austin energy received the award in December of 2024. Based on 2023 data analysis. We plan to continue our leadership in evs in the future. So the next thing I want to talk about is some of our priorities for the coming year. First, and Lisa martin is going to be talking about this in a minute. In a minute, we're going to talk to you about our plans for implementing the generation resource plan that you all just approved last month. The second thing is we're going to work closely with the city's intergovernmental team on the legislative issues that are ongoing right now. In the session that just started. The third thing that we're going to work on, and we've been waiting for this for a while, the underground overhead hardening studies, we will be providing you a status update soon on these two studies, probably sometime in March. We're still waiting for the hardening study [9:18:43 AM] waiting for the hardening study to come in. And then, as I think all of you are aware, we're launching two new solar offerings the solar for all and the solar standard offer. And finally, we're going to, of course, continue expanding our customer assistance program that we've been working on for the last bunch of years. But we're given direction, what about a year and a half ago to expand it from? I think we were about 40 some thousand up to 83. And I think we're making good progress. I think we're about 67,000 people now. Customers. I'm going to turn it over to Lisa in a second here, and she's going to talk to you, like I said, about where we are in the generation resource plan. And then, you know, we just had this recent cold snap. I think our crews were luckily it was a nonevent from a utility point of view, but we had crews staged. We were all ready to go. The good thing is that nothing really happened that impacted the utility. But she's going to talk to you about our winter weather preparation plans and updates to our storm recovery [9:19:45 AM] updates to our storm recovery process. I'll be glad to answer any questions before I sit down if you have anything. >> Thank you. General manager, could you elaborate on the $15 million federal grant for the electric vehicle charging ports? And I know there's been a lot of breaking news over, you know, the last week or so. What is the status of that? What is the situation? What's the executive order that you're referencing? >> As, you know, the administration with our president trump has ordered kind of a halt on this stuff to look things over. And we're just waiting to see what's going to happen with that Ira grant. >> So just uncertainty right now as to the status of, I guess, any federal funds coming our way. >> Perhaps not. I am told that Houston, you know, on the solar for all I think Houston has that $250 million or so. So I asked this question a few weeks ago. I [9:20:46 AM] this question a few weeks ago. I said, what about our $31 million? And we think we're going to get that. Okay, time will tell. >> Well appreciate it. And council member qadri, I'm sorry, mayor Watson. >> Yeah, just quickly and not in too much detail, but the freeze has now been maybe bigger than what was originally talked about. And the manager's office working with our ig. Our office is putting together a memo to get information out to everybody. So. But there's a number we're talking about. Many, many pass through grants that and that would be coming to the city otherwise that are that are being frozen right now to allow the administration to look at things. So we should have something. Iger has been in touch, including our the ig person that we use in Washington DC, to make sure that we have all of the information and there should be some something from [9:21:47 AM] should be some something from the manager's office later today. >> Thank you very much. Mayor and council member qadri did you have. >> Thank you. Chair. Your chair. Yeah. If we get the funding, do we have an idea of where the ev chargers would go, like locations? >> I don't know exactly where they're going to go. We're going to focus on areas that are needing that kind of things. Areas in town that need assistance in that area. We're going to put superchargers. There, plan to use chargers underinvested areas of town is going to be the focus. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. >> Council member harper-madison. >> Thank you. As a continuation of that question, I'm just curious about how do we determine which areas are considered underserved? Underinvested I certainly have my ideas, but I'm just curious what are the determining factors? I and that's something that you guys can follow up on. [9:22:48 AM] that you guys can follow up on. >> I think that's something. >> We don't need to believe. >> That's going to be our focus, though. >> That'd be great if we could get a memo that just sort of gives a general outline of the process for selection. >> Sure. We'll be glad to get back with you. >> On that. Thank you. And final question on that. Will council members have the opportunity to weigh in on what areas in their district they happen to be familiar with as potential places. >> We can serve? We will certainly work with you on that. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Okay. >> I have a continuation of that question now. Council member. Qadri would will community members, constituents have an opportunity to weigh in on where they think they should go? Like, will we have a public input period? I guess. >> I don't know that we've thought about that, but that's certainly something we can consider. We'll talk to the council. Like I just said, we'll work with the council members on this and we'll see where this goes. But that's certainly something that can happen. >> Great. Thank you. And council member alter. >> I was just going to ask as we go forward, just if this occurs between this meeting and our [9:23:51 AM] between this meeting and our next oversight meeting, I know there has been talk about repealing the inflation reduction act, and there are a lot of tax credits within that that right now are protected because they're in statute. But if there is language that is put forward that would impact any tax credits that might benefit, whether that's solar or other programs, you know, even all the way down to heat pumps. Can y'all provide just that information, whether it's through the grow or something, just so that we can think about how we might change timelines or potentially have to accelerate things ahead of that being enacted. >> Well, certainly work real close with grow on that. >> Great. Thank you. >> You know, there's a lot of uncertainty and change, and we'll please keep us updated and we'll respond as as appropriate. Any other questions for our general manager? Council member Laine. >> I just wanted to piggyback on some of what was said before and [9:24:52 AM] some of what was said before and just express that I'm also very interested as a new council member in understanding the point at which I can give feedback on my district, and also that community members who are interested in knowing can know before decisions are made. So I appreciated that it was brought up and I'd love to see that be part of the memo is just what the plan is. >> Well, certainly work with all of you on that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. General manager Bob Kahn. >> Okay. And Lisa martin is going to give those briefings that I talked about. >> Perfect. Let's go ahead and call up miss martin and to discuss item five, a briefing on the implementation of the Austin energy resource generation and climate protection plan. Miss martin, the floor is yours. >> Good morning, and thank you. And I may use this. Wonderful. Good morning, council members. And congratulations, chair and vice chair, welcome to first utility oversight committee of the year. I'm Lisa martin, Austin energy's chief operating officer. And today I have two briefings for you. My first one [9:25:53 AM] briefings for you. My first one is an initial follow up on the resource generation and climate protection plan to 2035 to share with you our next steps for implementation. Before I jump in, I want to take a moment to recognize what we accomplished last year in December. This resource generation and climate protection plan received unanimous approval. That was a big undertaking for all of us, because we had to take a step back to understand the challenges, the changing energy landscape, the risks and the opportunities. We brought you this updated plan. After many realized that the previous plan needed an update and it was going to take all of us, including many in the community, to get a holistic plan across the finish line. I'm especially proud of this plan because it allows Austin to continue its environmental leadership, building on our industry leading, carbon free path, and gives us the flexibility and tools needed to provide our community reliable and affordable power in an ever changing energy landscape. This slide shows two things, though. [9:26:54 AM] slide shows two things, though. On the left, it's some data that demonstrates how Austin energy's generation portfolio is industry leading when it comes to carbon free. The horizontal bar chart is what shows us how much electricity Austin energy generated last year. In fiscal year 24, that was carbon free. And it compares that to all the energy generated in ercot and across the United States. And you can see that our 72% is head and shoulders above the state and the country. Who's closer to the 42%? On the right side, we look at carbon free generation as a percentage of load. Now, that metric matters, because what we're saying is that when our customers use energy, we want to make sure that we're providing electricity that is carbon free to cover what our customers are using. And you can see that that number has changed over time. In 2022, we were at our highest with 77% carbon free as a percentage of load. And since then, largely due to changing energy landscape, our numbers have bounced around a [9:27:55 AM] numbers have bounced around a bit and we expect that to happen over the next few years. This is happening for a couple of reasons. One, because of load growth. Two, because the carbon free energy that we have is not going as far either. There's trouble getting that power from where it's generated to where it's being used. Transmission congestion or sometimes there's oversupply in the market. On a day like today, which might be sunny and windy, but there's not as much demand because it's temperate. And so sometimes that extra abundance of generation needs to be curtailed. Essentially, it's just not going as far as it used to. And so we're going to see these numbers changing. And these are reflective of some of the risks that we are facing as we continue to work towards our goal of 100% carbon free. So the idea and the objective is to get the bar charts to 100% by 2035. So the items affecting our carbon free goals are just two of the risks that we're facing. And this slide shows the rest of them everything from growth in population data centers, ai, [9:28:56 AM] population data centers, ai, electric vehicles and electric appliances. All good things, but a tremendous amount of growth coming our way. In addition to transmission congestion, extreme weather and climate risk to ercot, market changes and financial risks, we've also seen challenges from plant retirements. And the 2035 plan that you adopted helps address these challenges. The 2035 plan is our bridge to a clean energy future. The risks to our customers energy values are too big and too real, and this plan provides answers to those issues. It gives us the outcomes based policy that allows the flexibility to adapt to changing conditions, and it sets expectation on the order of priority. And it provides guardrails to minimize unwanted outcomes. It recognizes tradeoffs and considers how to best achieve equitable outcomes. In doing so, it provides a clear and continued commitment to 100% carbon free generation by 2035. It provides an industry leading customer energy solutions program. It promotes [9:29:57 AM] program. It promotes reliability, affordability, and sustainability. It protects our most vulnerable. It's resilient to extreme weather. It's flexible and innovative, built to adapt to changing conditions. And as you all know, this is certainly a community informed plan. The plan is built off of the four main categories in our toolkit, and the order really does matter. In implementing this plan, we are going to prioritize the customer energy solutions. Those are all the solutions that we know and love here in Austin. From rooftop solar to energy efficiency and demand response, electric vehicles in the garages and batteries on the sides of people's homes. This plan allows us to develop local solutions, and it continues our commitment to decarbonization, and it commits to further our culture of innovation so that we can hit those aggressive goals. Each category is filled with tools to help us be the electric utility that the community expects us to be, one that shows a clear commitment to a clean energy future and equitable transition to carbon free, and one that [9:30:59 AM] to carbon free, and one that provides for reliable and affordable power. The 2035 plan is committed to transparency, with regular council updates on several aspects of the plan that are of particular interest. Specifically, the plan says that annually we'll come back to you and discuss the progress we've made, the changes we're seeing, and the actions we need to continue forward. Built this way will have an annual check in with you to ensure we're on the right path, and whether there are changed conditions or other factors that would trigger the need for the next plan update. We also have semiannual updates on a more granular scale. We're going to talk about the progress on the goals, the actions taken to install local battery storage, a look at the stack emissions, and how our progress is on ending the use of coal and our progress towards achieving our carbon free goals. And this slide shows the high level summary of the goals and the guardrails that are in the 2035 [9:31:59 AM] guardrails that are in the 2035 plan. The regular reporting will cover the various categories that you see here. We'll use these as a yardstick to track our progress as we report. And so here you see the goals and guardrails on energy efficiency, demand response, local solar, local battery storage, the carbon intensity guardrails and the stack emissions that we're going to track for you. And with a new plan in front of us, we know that we have a lot of work to do. So in addition to the numerical goals that we talked about in the last slide, this slide pulls out some of the key implementation priorities that we have before us. So first up, the immediate priorities. These are things that you'll expect to see or have already happened this quarter. So earlier this month we launched the solar standard offer. Later this quarter, we plan to complete the dnv consultant study on that market, potential for customer solutions and the greenhouse gas avoidance goals. Very soon, we'll be launching our battery storage request for proposal, hopefully at the end of this month, and then in the next month or so, we expect to break [9:33:00 AM] month or so, we expect to break ground on that geothermal pilot in the near term category. I'm talking about things that we plan on doing throughout the remainder of this calendar year. In a few months, we'll bring before you the 2024 international energy conservation code for your adoption. We'll launch updated demand response programs and the solar for all grant work. We will be coming to you with an update on progress towards ending the use of coal, and will initiate that all resource rfp and begin the feasibility phase for new peakers. And then in the long term, this is next year and beyond. Although some of the initiating work has already begun, you'll see that we'll shift to greenhouse gas avoidance, tracking and goals. We'll have a full suite of beneficial electrification incentives. We'll have set up a management system for distributed energy resources. We'll continue our work towards increasing our transmission import capacity, and we'll do a lot of things on the innovation front, including exploring advanced nuclear. So that was just a quick overview of where [9:34:02 AM] just a quick overview of where we're headed with the resource generation and climate protection plan. As these things happen, we'll come back to you, chair and vice chair and committee members to share our progress. And then, of course, semiannually, we'll be giving you the updates on the goals and the guardrails. >> Thank you very much for the report. Questions from councilmember Siegel. >> Thank you, chair. And thank you, deputy GM martin. Of course, we really appreciate all the great work of Austin energy, especially moving towards renewable energy. I want to ask for a little more detail about battery storage. Obviously excited that we're pushing to get 125mw online. I think that still has us trailing places like Houston and San Antonio. And I guess I'm wondering if you could say more about our efforts to produce more battery storage capacity and whether we could maybe increase those goals. >> Yeah. So right now, our first plan of action is to set forth a battery storage rfp later this month. And we're going to do it through a ppa because it's the quickest and fastest way to get [9:35:03 AM] quickest and fastest way to get some of this stuff online. And we have a goal to get on at least 125mw by 2027. So we know some of that will come from residential and commercial battery storage, but we're going to have to do a larger scale solicitation. And so that's the intent here. We're going to look for, you know, when you when you put out these terms for the developer community, you have to kind of give them some some boundaries of what you're looking for. And so we're going to start with about 100 to 150mw of either two, 3 or 4 hour battery storage open to all energy storage types. Although we anticipate, you know, given technologies and whatnot, that a lot of those that will come forward will be battery storage, and then we'll do those through a power purchase agreement. Get get, you know, that first one underway. And then certainly when we do the all resource rfp, there will be an opportunity for additional to come online while we're also working on our residential battery storage programs. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Councilmember qadri. [9:36:03 AM] >> Councilmember qadri. >> Great. Thank you for the presentation. I had a question on the on slide nine. You had mentioned about the international energy conservation code that it would be anticipated adoption sometime in the near future. Do you have a rough like month? Is it April. Is it may? >> I think it's coming in April. But I'm going to look. April. Yeah. >> Is it is it possible to do it sooner rather than later, since it's something that's more, I guess, in our control. >> If I'm wrong. Sure. I'm pretty sure that it comes as part of a suite of updates to a number of codes. And so that's coordinated with other departments of the city as well. And that it's on the schedule for April is my understanding. >> Okay, great. >> Thank you. I believe that will come with the wildfire and the a handful of other code amendments. Building code amendments when it will come together as a package. If I'm. >> That's my understanding. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Any other questions from the committee? One question on that slide where you show Austin energy, the carbon free [9:37:05 AM] energy, the carbon free generation at 72% in 2024. Again, we're well above the national and state averages. Is there a utility that's generating more carbon free generation, as you know, in their service area around the country? >> You know, we certainly are leading on that path, and it's hard to benchmark exactly those numbers from individual utilities. So I don't know that I have an exact answer for you. But, you know, when it comes to utilities of our size, right? We're the third largest municipally owned utility in the United States. We find that we are we are at par with the elite utilities. >> Because I was looking, for example, at the Tennessee valley authority and with their mostly carbon, I mean, they were like 90%. >> Yeah. So a lot of, a lot of generation resources are geographical. And so Tennessee valley authority has a lot of nuclear. And then certainly on [9:38:05 AM] nuclear. And then certainly on the pacific northwest there's a ton of hydro. And so there are certain conditions that that make things different for different utilities. Here in Texas. We have the benefit of plentiful wind and plentiful solar. And as you know, one of our Achilles heel is the transmission congestion. So we need to figure out how to, you know, undo some of those wrinkles and make things work better for city of Austin as well. >> Absolutely. And if there's no further questions, I guess if you want to go ahead and move to item six, the briefing on the winter weather preparedness. >> Happy to do so. All right. So good morning again, Lisa martin, Austin energy's chief operating officer. And as we continue through the winter season, we want to provide you with a summary of our winter weather preparedness activities, as well as an update on some of our storm recovery capabilities. So I want to start with our most important resource, which is our people. Austin energy employees work in all types of weather conditions, around the clock and [9:39:06 AM] conditions, around the clock and weather, in the field or at the plants. They have to take precautions to ensure protection of their safety and well-being. Our employees do this by staying hydrated, wearing gear appropriate to the weather conditions, checking their equipment regularly, taking breaks and heated spaces. Our field personnel partner with specialty teams and safety and fleet to make sure that they themselves are prepared, but also that their vehicles are prepared. And then we hold safety briefings on various topics specific to the applicable hazards prior to work. We also need to make sure that we protect our infrastructure year round. We inspect each substation every 8 to 12 weeks, but during the winter, that frequency increases to every month. During those inspections, our specialized substation personnel are running through checklists to do things like verify that critical components are protected for the extreme weather conditions. They're checking insulating gas and oil levels to make sure they're within appropriate range. They're verifying that the cabinet heaters are operating. They're also [9:40:06 AM] operating. They're also performing ongoing testing of components, ensuring adequate staffing levels in case an emergency event arises. And they're brushing up on their winter preparedness training. Similar activities are happening at our power plants prior to the winter season. Our employees are ensuring that all the protective measures are in place, especially for the critical components. They're checking inventory levels, ensuring adequate personnel for emergency events, and they're brushing up on their training. These photos show some of the preparations at work. The photo on the left shows a wind wall, which helps protect the outdoor element equipment from the elements, especially the winds whipping around the equipment. The center photo shows a pile of custom made custom quilted insulation blankets that prior to these are prior to installation, but once they get installed, they wrap around the pipes kind of like you would wrap around at your pipes at home, but these are custom made for our power plants. And then the photo to the right shows some heat tracing. You see some wires taped along the pipes and along the equipment. These are wires [9:41:07 AM] the equipment. These are wires that heat up to ensure pipes and critical components don't freeze when they're exposed to the elements. All of the photos that you're going to see in this presentation are actual photos of our people and our equipment. And so even when the weather looks like this, our power plants and our substations are equipped to run. We do that by ensuring our personnel are properly trained for all the weather conditions, and we activate all of our winter weatherization activities that I spoke about on the last couple of slides. And every year prior to December, our general manager, Bob Kane, has to sign a winter weather readiness attestation both to ercot and the public utility commission of Texas, stating that we're ready to go and that we comply with all the regulations related to being prepared for the winter season. Then, throughout the year, we participate in ercot inspections, where they come to check and make sure that those protective measures are in place. So now I'm going to switch gears a little bit to talk about some of the enhancements to our storm [9:42:08 AM] enhancements to our storm recovery capabilities. And many of these resulted from our lessons learned after the two winter storms in recent years. The first set of slides I'm going to show you talks about storm restoration coordination in a number of different ways. So when it comes to storm response, our crews need to be highly coordinated. And there are several enhancements we made in this area. We established an enhanced damage assessment process for emergency response, and trained a lot of additional personnel to enable this activity and gather much needed information to help us develop a system wide estimated time of restoration. We clarified our storm restoration prioritization process for a common understanding throughout the utility and in support of clear messaging to the public, and we enhanced our mutual aid agreements and processes to ensure that Austin energy has access to the needed resources to respond to an event. So I'm going to talk about each one of those in a little bit of detail and give you some examples. So I'm going to start with damage assessment. Let me talk about a blue sky day first. For example, [9:43:09 AM] blue sky day first. For example, an outage that happens when a car hits a pole. That's what you're seeing on the left hand side of this screen. On a typical day, that's handled through our energy control center and our troubleshooting staff, these are groups that are working 24 over seven around the clock to respond to this type of event. The way it works is that a grid operator sitting in a control center will get an alarm that an outage has occurred, and he'll dispatch a troubleshooter to patrol the area to assess the issue and to resolve the problem. So together they do all three of these areas, these these steps on the on the chart. If additional support is needed, the troubleshooter will analyze what's needed and report back to the grid operator who will dispatch the appropriate personnel. So say for example, that the car that hit the pole caused the pole to break and a new one has to be set. Then you might send a special truck and crew out there with a digger truck to be able to set a new pole. So that's how it happens on a blue sky day. On the right side of the screen you see a pictures from winter storm Mario that ice storm in 2023. During a [9:44:09 AM] that ice storm in 2023. During a major event like this, we need to ramp up the amount of people that we have involved. And so our usual field crews, they still perform this first step, the patrol step. They handle the short duration repairs, ones that are so easy and so quick that it wouldn't make sense for them to pass them up and come back to them. But since the objective is to get front line damage reports in support of an overall coordinated response, we're also often telling them that they need to continue to move forward, that this isn't a normal day, and we need them to continue to patrol the entire system so we can get the wide area view in order to expand our footprint and to get more boots on the ground as soon as it is safe to do so. We engage our design and engineering teams to support the damage assessment efforts. These folks have jobs that make them know exactly what it should look like out in the field. And so essentially, they go out, they gather detailed information about what's broken and what it's going to take to get that power flowing once again. And they send that information back to a third team [9:45:09 AM] information back to a third team back at the office who is analyzing it so that we can organize the work, send out the appropriate crews and the appropriate order to respond. And they're also putting all that information into a calculator that is calculating a system wide estimated time of restoration. And that's going to tell us if it's going to be a 1 to 2 a day event or if it's going to be longer than that. This slide talks about shows a graphic of how we prioritize our efforts. It describes three easy to understand phases that will aid in communicating with the public and the stakeholders in general. The first phase is when we make sure that the backbone of the grid is up and running. It's when we're telling people to please be patient. We're taking care of the life, safety and critical loads. We're working to close the main circuit breakers at the substations that connect the larger grid to the distribution circuit, or the feeder that's going to go through the neighborhoods and various geographic areas. And once that main grid is up and running, once that phase one is complete, then we move to the second phase where we turn our attention to the remaining outages, often [9:46:10 AM] the remaining outages, often affecting hundreds of customers at a time. And we're prioritizing those by doing the largest amounts of customers in an outage. First, that takes several takes, takes some time to work through, and then the third phase gets to the smaller outages, focusing on what we sometimes call singles or doubles, their outages affecting very few homes or businesses, which often results in a very localized issue, usually between the transformer that feeds your home or business and then your home or business. Sometimes it's on our side and sometimes it's on the customer side. And when it's on the customer side, the customer has to hire an electrician to repair the issue before our crews can safely restore the power. So that amount of coordination is also important. Historically, this phase three has been the last section or the last mile of restoration, which could mean that some customers didn't find out or didn't realize that they had damage on their side until late into the process, and then that just adds additional time to their outage and additional frustration. So now in phase two, we mobilize a team that we [9:47:11 AM] two, we mobilize a team that we call our single ticket teams who can assess customer damages and provide customer support earlier. And ideally, what happens is that the customer then has time to call the electrician, do the repairs on their side. So when we get to them in phase three, they're ready to receive power from us. And so when our damage assessors are out and they identify damages on the customer side, they're going to leave this newly created door hanger, which provides the customer guidance on what to do, who to call. And then our single ticket teams are available to help support, and you can see some photos of them as well. Switching to mutual aid. Sometimes there are situations where our own resources are not adequate to complete the restoration needs in a timely manner, and then we have to lean on others to provide mutual aid. We're a member of several mutual aid networks in Texas and throughout the United States, and we have reviewed our mutual aid agreements and our electric services contracts to ensure that we have necessary arrangements for activation when required. We often step up and [9:48:14 AM] required. We often step up and provide mutual aid to support in the support of either line crews or incident command personnel. Recent examples include supporting hurricane beryl in Houston last year and in 2017. We sent many incident command members for several months to Puerto Rico to support hurricane Maria recovery, which devastated that island. We've taken those experiences to guide us while we established our service agreements, including how we support crews that respond to our call for mutual aid. And this photo is actually from one of our yards. When centerpoint energy and many others responded to our call for support during the ice storm in 2023, you may recall we had over 450 additional personnel working on our system to restore power during that event. I think I just have two more slides for y'all. I do want to say our storm recovery enhancements also have to do with how we communicate information about outages to our customers. So let me just set the stage. We have an online outage map of our [9:49:15 AM] an online outage map of our service territory, which shows active outages and related pieces of information. Anyone can view the entire map and then if you are a customer, you can register to report and receive updates on the outages that affect you. Specifically, we use a company called cobra for our outage map. They're a utility leader in the outage map platforms, and we've partnered with them for several years. And many, many across the united States use them. We provide ongoing feedback to improve functionality and the ease of use for customers. It's a very coordinated and two way relationship. During the ice storm, there were issues with system capacity and two way communications, resulting in negative customer experience. For example, outage reporting by text sometimes timed out, and it caused customers to repeatedly have to attempt to report outages. So we have since increased the capacity of the system to effectively handle 2 to 3 times the peak volumes we saw during that storm, we more than doubled the number of [9:50:16 AM] than doubled the number of simultaneous users that the system can handle, and we more than tripled the time the system has to talk to other integrated systems and bring back a response before it times out. We improved our automated messaging templates, and last year we implemented auto enrollment of customers into our outage notifications. For every customer for whom we have a phone number on file. And so therefore more people have information that this system provides at their fingertips in their phones. Finally, in response to some of the extreme weather events, there's been a focus on expanding and enhancing our emergency management efforts. At Austin energy, we expanded the team. We hired a director of emergency management, who is also a certified emergency manager, and we built a team around that individual with a total of four resources, where we previously only had one. We benchmarked and continue to have conversations with other utilities around event response and bring those lessons learned into our work. We revamped our incident response and updated our incident management team with [9:51:17 AM] incident management team with executives at the highest levels, and we increased our ongoing training. This is actually a photo from one of the drills in our old department operations center. We've upgraded our department operations center, so I'll have to bring you a photo of that next time. And we're in the process of implementing voc as an emergency management software, along with other city departments, for coordinated response. So all of all these preparedness measures and storm recovery enhancements are intended to better organize and streamline our process and provide better information to the customers and stakeholders along the way. I'm happy to take any questions you may have. >> Thank you very much. Questions from the committee. The council member Laine. >> So I was kind of looking at this slide when this when this question came up for me. So and this is more of an after question. So I understand the prioritization and how that works. That sounds great. Is there at a later date, a time when we're looking at the frequency of outages that are [9:52:18 AM] frequency of outages that are being experienced in these categories, especially the smaller ones, because if during the incident there, you know, and I understand, they're not consistently, you know, at the bottom because we've made these changes. But, you know, if they are a lower priority during the incident, for whatever very strong reasons there are, if we're not looking at the frequency later of their reliability, they'll become persistent outages always experienced in the same areas. So that's the nature of my question. Thank you. >> Yeah, it's a it's a great question. And when it comes to outage management and reliability and resiliency as a whole, there's a number of different ways to look at these events. And sometimes they're on major event days like these types of storms. And sometimes we're looking at non-major event days. And we have to kind of look at the holistic picture, what you're talking about, frequency of interruptions is one of the main metrics that we look at. We call it saifi system average index of frequency interruptions or. Yes. And then we also look at the duration. One of the other things that we [9:53:19 AM] One of the other things that we look at is the those who have experienced multiple interruptions within a period of time. So yes, as we continue to present and discuss with you, you'll see a lot of those various ways. >> Okay. And I have a shorter question follow up question. So what is the cadence at which the council receives updates on reliability and progress towards goals and improvement on that. >> So I provide a quarterly operations report to you. And it's, you know, the second quarter of every month. Of every the second month of every quarter. Thank you, thank you. >> Council member duchen. >> Lisa, thanks for this, and I appreciate you guys have invested in a tremendous amount since the last winter storm. Can you give me any sense of where current vulnerabilities still exist or under what circumstances? The system would not be prepared for? How biblical of an event will we need for a storm or ice storm where even with the improvements [9:54:20 AM] where even with the improvements you've made, we might still have issues? >> Yeah. I mean, our, you know, the when you have, you know, thousands of miles of, of wires and poles and, you know, transformers and pieces of equipment throughout the system. You know, there's a number of different types of, of vulnerabilities that exist and hazards that could create an unwanted. Situation. High winds, a high lightning storm, certainly ice. When these things are in any combination thereof, then it makes it worse. And so really what it is, is how are we, you know, day in and day out, working to improve the reliability and resiliency as we do maintenance work? How are we looking to upgrade and make sure that we're investing prudently in the best way to make sure that we can try to minimize the impact. So how do we make ourselves as reliable as possible, and then how do bounce back, whether it's through technology or through our organized efforts to make a long duration outage just a [9:55:20 AM] long duration outage just a little bit shorter. And so there's a number of events that's typical for any utility. Thankfully, we don't have the tornadoes or the hurricane risks that we have. But flooding, wildfire, major storms, all of those are still a typical risk for utility. >> Thank you. I just remember seeing centerpoint struggle with Houston recently and just trying to figure out where the I'm assuming there's been different scenarios you guys have run or tabletop exercises or who knows what. I'm just trying to figure out if there are specific events that you feel like were still perhaps underprepared for. >> No, I think that we are as prepared as we can be, but you continue to run a drill to train, you know, increase your bench depth, make sure that you have sufficient damage. Assessors, crew members, you know, how are your mutual assistance programs in order? It's really just a matrix of support efforts that come together. And we're always honing on them. And the fact that we have four dedicated emergency management personnel really helps as well. Thank you, thank. [9:56:23 AM] thank. >> You. >> Thank you very much. Council member Velasquez. >> Yeah, thank you so much for the presentation. I was curious, how were we in? And I like the door hangers that you are leaving behind. But how are we ensuring language access access when we leave those? And is there a possibility? I see that I was just about to ask a qr code, and then I saw it there in the bottom right hand corner. Is there a possibility for those for that information to be translated in different languages? >> I believe that almost all of our communications are translated in multiple languages. And I think that when you call our call center, there's the ability for us to reach out and get a translator on the call as well. So even if you can't read the door hanger, but you can read the phone number and make a call, I think there's a way for you to connect to us. >> Awesome. And I mean, I think it just this is just from my marketing background. I think it'd be a good idea to even include some of those. Scan here for additional languages in different languages on the on the door hanger. >> Noted. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Appreciate it. >> Any further questions from the committee? Well, I just wanted to I'm so glad that we helped other utilities, other [9:57:23 AM] helped other utilities, other areas when they need. And I remember one of the happiest moments during the winter storm in 2023 was seeing those CPS trucks from San Antonio pull up into the street and start, you know, working on the trees and untangling the wires and all that. The and I just wanted to comment also that the text notices are extremely helpful. I'm enrolled in those. And you know, you get a text notice, I believe when the power goes out and there's usually a follow up text with a estimated restoration time. >> That's right. >> And those are extremely helpful. And that's extremely customer service oriented. Did you mention that folks are automatically enrolled in the text notices? >> Yes. >> If we have your phone number in our system, then now we are automatically enrolling and people have to opt out. >> Great. And then finally, looking back at the recent winter storm and the cold temperatures that we had, how did we perform both locally and statewide? >> Yeah. [9:58:23 AM] >> Yeah. >> So we've had two cold snaps so far. And from a power utility sector, thankfully they haven't been very impactful to us. We've had crews ready to go on standby, and we've made sure that our power plants had appropriate personnel there because, you know, extreme weather. I'm sorry, exposure to the cold is an issue for power plants. The weatherization work is working. And so thankfully outages were minimal in both. Situations. The you know, we did not experience ice to any measurable degree, nor winds really a combination of ice and winds together is a bad combination for our electric utility. You know, snow of the amount that we receive doesn't create quite as much issue. And so people are able to enjoy that. So thankfully, you know, so far have been doing well. But we're always at the ready. We had incident management team activated I'm sorry on standby ready to activate. And we did [9:59:23 AM] ready to activate. And we did participate as always with the citywide emergency operations center to be able to respond and prepare, you know, to whereas the activation there was more for cold weather events and transportation concerns should the need have arisen. We were had a representative there and we're ready to activate our full team. >> From a statewide perspective, how did the statewide grid perform in terms of any outages? How did the renewables do during the storm? Any sense of the broader statewide picture? >> Well. >> I think the biggest concern statewide is, is whether or not we have resource adequacy concerns. And so in both instances, ercot said that we were in a weather watch from the perspective of be aware that there's cold and freezing, you know, whether that's, you know, in Texas. But there was plenty of generation and supply from all different generation types to meet the needs. And so that's one of the main concerns that usually happens statewide, where people think about when they [10:00:25 AM] people think about when they worry about statewide. We did have some personally, I can say some of our power purchase agreements for wind farms experienced some icing on the blades that caused them to shut down temporarily. But as soon as the weather warmed back up, they're back up and running. >> Good, good. I was looking at the statewide totals, and it looked like from a statewide basis, renewables did pretty well during this this recent round of winter storms. Any notable plant outages, cold weather related plant outages, not necessarily even locally, but statewide. >> Certainly not for us. I did not hear of any statewide that created any sort of concern for the overarching grid. Not that I'm. >> Aware of. >> Very glad to hear all of that. Well, any further questions? Council member harper-madison. >> Thank you, chair, I appreciate it. Good morning. My question is actually about the exact opposite inclement conditions from winter. I'm thinking about July. And so team d1 is partnering with the local [10:01:25 AM] d1 is partnering with the local organization called the healing project and looking for other partners for fan drives, we typically have several that are sort of independently operated within the community, but we're looking to really sort of figure out how to not necessarily codify so much as, but address the needs. So there are a lot of folks who either don't have central air, especially those folks that are, you know, bordering that etj territory, or they have, you know, sort of window unit operations or have central air or window units, but have really high bills, so they don't run it, in which case we have folks that are burning up in their houses. And some of those folks are, you know, elderly or differently able. And so just really trying to figure out how to comprehensively address the need around inclement weather that is heat related and how we can partner with Austin energy to figure out a path forward. So I'm just curious if you guys have any ideas for how we can partner up and then, you know, just some that come to mind. Our [10:02:26 AM] just some that come to mind. Our distribution, for example, you know, your crews are already out in the field and, you know, have the opportunity to recognize need. I wonder if there's an opportunity to have a couple fans on, you know, in the fleet. And then also if Austin energy could help us compile a list of need based on I certainly respect people's privacy and wouldn't want to know their financial situations. But if there was a if we could get a compilation of folks who receive assistance or on payment plans or you know that you identify as that special needs category that qualifies for various programmatic efforts through Austin energy. If we could get that list and somehow make contact with folks to see if they need fans, I think oftentimes what happens is we have the good intention of having these fan drives, but folks either can't get there or don't know it's happening. And so just really wanting to make [10:03:27 AM] so just really wanting to make sure that the people who need them get them this summer when it's going to be really hot. >> Yeah, I certainly appreciate and share your concern for the community. And I would offer and for you and your staff to spend some time with, with us and with our with Carrie Overton, our chief customer officer, to see how we can partner, to help in whatever way is possible. I want to highlight a couple of ways that that Austin energy prepares for those types of events, and that you can help us get the word out. And that's through a lot of our programs that are in Carrie and Richard's area of customer energy solutions. We're talking about making sure that customers know that that that conditions, whether they're extreme hot or extreme cold, are going to impact their their living situation. And to the extent that they can make their home as energy efficient as possible so that it can stay, retain the heat, or retain the cool as long as possible. And so that's through programs like the weatherization program. You [10:04:28 AM] weatherization program. You know, there's an air conditioning tune up program. We have rebates for some folks related to upgrading to a more energy efficient air conditioning system. And there's a number of different ways that we try to help maintain the gift of comfort for those that are most vulnerable. And so really getting the word out and helping to the most vulnerable populations to know which programs are available to them so that they can take advantage of them, is really kind of the key connection that our team does, does great at. But we need we need all the help we can get. >> So I really appreciate that. And, you know, it's unfortunate that you ended the sentiment with how much help you need, because my thought is not only do you already need help, you're going to need additional help. Because in my mind's eye, we need case managers. So in my experience dealing with district one constituents, they either don't have the type of relationship with the homeowner to where they can communicate the need for weatherization or [10:05:29 AM] the need for weatherization or receive some sort of pushback. Oftentimes, homeowners don't want there to be repairs or maintenance in the homes that they own without their, you know, being present. Et cetera. And so I just wonder if there's an opportunity for us to advocate more efficiently with homeowners, for renters, primarily, these are folks who are renting their homes, not folks who own the home, in which case they don't get the opportunity to apply for the programmatic, you know, relief that they could otherwise get. So I, I can't help but wonder how we can advocate better and get directly to homeowners, as opposed to trying to go through renters and having them navigate that advocacy process. >> Right. >> And whether you're a renter in a home, and we need to get to those homeowners first or you're a renter in a multi-family unit, we have programs for that as well. There's a whole suite of wraparound services, and so I look forward to being able to connect. You know, I know that you probably have already. But to continue the conversation with our customer care team to better understand how to meet the needs of our most vulnerable [10:06:29 AM] the needs of our most vulnerable populations. >> Attitude. Thank you. >> Appreciate you. >> Thank you, council members. A real big issue, especially for renters, especially in a lot of the older multifamily housing that's really energy inefficient. They're getting some real big bills. Council member alter. >> I just wanted to piggyback on that. I was wondering, we passed a budget amendment this past August focused on the insulation, attic insulation incentive and to beef that up and hopefully use that as a hook to get people to do more than that. Right? Look at their windows and weatherstripping and all that. I am not expecting that, you know, all the ins and outs of the status of that. But if you could at some point provide an update to us of where that is, I know, you know, getting into the summer, we want that insulation to be done as soon as possible, not in July when it's already too hot, but in the spring months. So just wanted to get an update on that when we could. >> Noted. Thank you, thank you. >> Any other questions? Thank you very much, miss martin. [10:07:31 AM] you very much, miss martin. Greatly appreciate both updates. And then we will end on item seven. Identify items to discuss or future meetings. And just for the benefit of our new council members, we always have that as an item. Happy to hear any suggestions, but also feel free to email not just myself, but the chair of any committee to say, hey, can we put this on there? So I just wanted to mention that. Yes. Vice chair Siegel. >> Thank you. Chair. Yeah. I just want to piggyback on the conversation about multifamily weatherization. You know, that's a big priority for my district as well. So to the extent y'all could bring that back and we could talk more about how we can enhance that program, that would be greatly appreciated. >> I agree it's a tricky one because, you know, it's one of those where I don't really want to spend public dollars on private, you know, you know, to benefit a kind of a private landlord. But there's that, there's that. How do we bridge that gap where, you know, we have a old multifamily that could really use and update. It will help Austin energy, it will [10:08:32 AM] will help Austin energy, it will help the tenants. But how do we do that without necessarily, you know, providing a public dollars for private benefit kind of situation? >> No, that's right, chair, if I could just follow up, you know, in speaking with tenant advocates, this is actually the one program they really want to emphasize, because it's not so much a subsidy to the owner of the property, but to the tenants themselves. And so if we can decrease electric bills in the summer and winter, that's a major affordability program as well as the climate program. So I really think that's very important. >> I agree, councilmember Laine. >> And I'll agree with that. I've seen that in some of the older housing out in district six as well, where it's very challenging to get, you know, when it's an individual landowner, it's one situation that's a challenge. But I wonder as far as the larger multifamily apartment owners, if there might be space to look in terms of a tax credit opportunity. And I just wanted to put that out there. >> It's a really important discussion as we talk about demand management, I think that's a real key component of [10:09:33 AM] that's a real key component of demand management is energy efficiency. Again, we can do that, for example, through our new building codes that that we're hoping to pass soon. But what do we do in terms of retrofitting those old apartments. And the other major issue would be some of the just the air conditioning units that they use are extremely old and extremely inefficient, but that's a very important discussion to look forward to having it. Absolutely. And with no further questions or comments, let me go ahead and adjourn. The Austin energy utility oversight committee at 1010.