Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee (AEUOC) meeting Transcript – 7/22/2025 Title: ATXN-1 Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 7/22/2025 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 7/22/2025 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. [9:04:24 AM] So that chairman vela may call to order [9:05:25 AM] chairman vela may call to order the Austin energy utility oversight committee. And so, without objection, we are recessed at 905. And chairman vela, the gavel is yours. >> Thank you very much, mayor. I will call the meeting of Austin energy utility oversight committee to order at 905. All members of the committee are present, and let's go ahead and start with public communications. Do we have any folks that have signed up? >> No speakers. >> Thank you very much. Well, with no speakers, we'll go ahead and move on to the items. Item one is approval of the minutes from the may 20th, 2025 meeting. Can I get a motion to approve motion from council? From committee member duchen. Second from committee member Ryan alter and all those in favor. Please indicate by raising your hands unanimous approval of the [9:06:26 AM] unanimous approval of the minutes. Item two is the general manager's report by interim general manager Stuart Riley. General manager. The floor is yours. >> All right. Thank you, chair. And it looks like. Well, while they're pulling that presentation up I'll just get started again. I'm Stuart Riley, Austin energy interim general manager. I'll be speaking today about the microburst storm that Austin energy and our customers experienced at the end of may. But I do before I get into that. Want to acknowledge that more recently, this this central Texas area and hill country have experienced severe and tragic flooding. That flooding makes our may microburst storm seem minor by comparison, but it's important for us at Austin energy to identify measures that we need to do an even better job than what we did in this storm. But I couldn't move on to this may microburst storm and kind of go back farther than what we've experienced without stopping for a moment. Just to acknowledge that, I do want to say that all of these storms are another [9:07:27 AM] of these storms are another reminder of the severe and important impacts of climate change. And, you know, for decades, Austin energy has been an industry leader in fighting climate change. We're now also responding to its many impacts, responding with our customers and the other presentations besides this one that you'll see today on resource plan implementation, overhead system hardening, customer weatherization programs. That's all demonstrative of our commitment to fighting climate change, responding to climate change, and also helping our customers be more resilient. Next slide please. So, you know, we've had several unprecedented weather events here in recent years. This storm on may 28th was the third worst storm in Austin energy's history. From a outage perspective, that is, from a system damage perspective to from the perspective of damage to Austin energy infrastructure. This was [9:08:27 AM] infrastructure. This was actually the second worst storm that we've ever had, second only to winter storm in February of 2023. Winter storm uri in 2021 had more outages, but that was an ercot load shed emergency with less damage to the system. And this this storm, of course, came with very extreme rainfall and a very short period of time. Intense hail, high winds, a lot of lightning. And this was all concentrated in a band across Austin from west to east. And that came through in the evening early evening of may 28th. Next slide please. So this graph just shows the number of customers that we had affected starting the evening of may 28th. As you can see here, when the storm came through, its intensity caused a very, you know, immediate peak, peak, this spike in outages that came through within minutes, where we got up to 72,500 customers out additional storms, created other outages over the course of the restoration event. That's why you can see that it's not as [9:09:27 AM] you can see that it's not as smooth downward slope to that line as we had other storms that popped up and came through our area. Austin energy crews, along with mutual aid providers, restored all power to customers by late evening January 1st. Next slide. As with any big storm, our crews encountered many unique and unexpected challenges along the way, and at times that delayed our progress in restoring power. Crews reported seeing homes with roofs ripped off, trees uprooted and stuck back in the ground upside down. Things that our crew members reported they had never seen before. A lot of damage to our distribution lines and communications infrastructure of telecom providers. Most of the damage was at that distribution level to our infrastructure, but there was a transmission line that was damaged going across lady bird lake over near longhorn dam when a construction barge crane was pushed into our [9:10:28 AM] barge crane was pushed into our line from the high winds, and that caused damage that could only be repaired by helicopter. So we saw all kinds of impacts from this event. We set up multiple community outreach events to answer customer questions and also help with resources. And we did our best to keep our community informed along the way, whether that was through targeted text messages, emails, news media alerts or on social media. Next slide please. So this slide has a lot of numbers of what we experienced during this event. I've mentioned that we had a peak of 72,500 customers affected, but the total number of customers affected was 124,000 unique customers who were without power at any given point. During this event, we had 91 power poles that we replaced. Just to give you a sense of impact there. The typical pole replacement on a on a normal day, just your run of the mill pole replacement takes a larger line crew more than half a day to replace a single pole. And so we had 91 of those. [9:11:29 AM] pole. And so we had 91 of those. We replaced 52 transformers, 32,000ft of overhead cable. Our call centers fielded over 25,000 outage related inquiries. And between our crews, our contract crews and mutual aid providers, we had nearly a thousand people out in the field restoring power, not including our damage assessors. And our initial cost estimate from this response is $6.5 million in costs from this response, that number is likely to go up as we have additional mutual aid invoices coming in as well. Next slide please. So Austin energy is a continuous learning organization. And each time mother nature throws a new learning opportunity at us, we find ways to get findings from those events and learn from that and improve what we do going forward. And so we've done thorough after action reviews previously, and we're doing the same thing this time. Our after action reports and [9:12:29 AM] action reports and implementation updates are on our website. And there we show how we have documented each and every follow up action from all of those storms, and how we have followed up on every one of those identified action items. And during this four day storm response, we employed several lessons learned from previous after action reviews, particularly from the winter storm or after action review. And so in this outage response, we implemented our new departmental incident management team that provides enhanced communications and collaboration, a new damage assessment process to more quickly understand the magnitude and complexity of our restoration needs. Our phased restoration one, two, three process that focuses resources where those resources need to go and also helps our customers understand the process. Our enhanced outage map capacity, with all that traffic going to the outage map in previous storms, when we had those those periods, the website couldn't handle that amount of traffic. We fixed that as well. And [9:13:30 AM] We fixed that as well. And better mutual aid coordination and pre drafted contracts so that we can bring in mutual aid crews more rapidly. This is the first time we've implemented any of these new changes. And it's our estimation that we'll only get better at this going forward. And now we are in the middle of our may microburst storm after action review. And so this involves a discovery process analyzing feedback and coming up with improvements that will be in a report that we expect to be complete in October. Next slide. So lastly I'd just like to thank all the Austin energy team members for all their hard work, whether that was on the incident management team and the call center out in the field, working many, many long hours away from families to provide 24 hour coverage. Also, our partners at heysham Austin police department, Austin fire department and several of the support services departments for the collaboration on this response. I'd also like to thank all of you, mayor and council members for amplifying our [9:14:30 AM] members for amplifying our messages that we put out to the community and helping us get word out to our customers. But most importantly, I'd like to thank those customers for their for their patience. Every outage event is a very frustrating experience, but we heard a lot of support for our line workers, for the mutual aid providers, and I'm just very grateful for our customers and their patience with us as we worked as quickly and safely to get the lights back on. But and before I before I finish, I just want to say that, you know, it's important to do well at restoration in outage scenarios, but that's not all that we want to be good at. We want to make sure that we don't have the outage in the first place. That's why our resiliency plan is very important. That's why all the work that we're doing to harden our system and studying that, and you'll hear about that in a little bit. So chair, that's all I've got. And I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Mr. Chairman. >> Excellent segue there to one of the other items on the agenda. But mother nature has been sending us far too many learning opportunities recently. [9:15:32 AM] learning opportunities recently. Hopefully that will slow down a bit. I did want to just ask about that. The restoration process of the phase one, phase two, phase three approach. My sense from the feedback that I got in the communications was that there was more clarity in the communications, and that people are willing to be patient when they have a better understanding of the timeframe that they're looking at for power restoration. I was just wondering if you could just explain that that phase one, phase two, phase three process. >> Absolutely, yes. So and what we're calling restoration one, two, three are the phase one, phase two, phase three during phase one, that is the time when we need to focus our restoration activities on getting critical load customers back online, like hospitals, critical communications equipment, first responder locations along with the mainline circuits. So getting the backbone of the system back up and running during that phase one. So critical customers, hospitals [9:16:32 AM] critical customers, hospitals and things, backbone of the system phase once we're through with that, phase two is when we move into getting off of that system backbone and into some of the lateral lines off of that backbone. So going into a lot of the neighborhoods, some of some of those distribution laterals that affect a large number of customers. And in that we work always from from largest to smallest and from oldest to newest outage. And then phase three is when we have the smallest, you know, you know, single or double outages where you just have a very isolated. It's just at the transformer, it's a or it's a customer service drop into their property where maybe they need an electrician and so forth. And we have improved our processes a lot in terms of getting word to our customers of what they need to do in terms of getting an electrician. Dsd has been great about expediting those, the permit processes and doing the inspection after the fact. And so that's the restoration. One, two, three. And then just a final question from me, the [9:17:33 AM] final question from me, the outage map. How did you feel about the performance of the outage map? I know that there's been some upgrades and some improvements made to the outage map over the last few years. How are you feeling about it? >> You know, I will say that each each time there's a very large scale event. There's something that materializes on the outage map. This time it was some, you know, little very minor things that we work with. The cobra is the outage map vendor, and we've worked with them over the years to really enhance the capabilities of that system and to make sure that it works for customers. Because what you know, previously, what we saw was it's very good on a day to day outage of just your normal. But when you have a very large outage event like this, it's maybe not built for that, but it's getting better at that. And I think we had really good performance from it this time around. >> Great. Well thank you. Thank the team at Austin energy, lineworkers, everybody. And I thank the customers also for their patience. I think folks were, were were patient and understanding and that's greatly [9:18:34 AM] understanding and that's greatly appreciated. And just got to thank Tammy and Amy because that's who I'm blowing up their phones. When these situations. >> You and everybody else. >> And mayor. >> I just want to piggyback on that and on something that the that Stewart said and that relates to the communications and messaging to follow up on what you're saying, Mr. Chairman, of course, we've just come through a couple of really awful, horrible weeks where one of the things that people are focused on is, is communication. And of course, two and a half years ago, we had the big storm and one of one of the I think one of the things that the city did not do a good job at at all was communications during that period of time and the level of a work to provide lots of communications and to provide it, as the chairman has indicated, in a way that makes sense, that that people can understand and can relate to, I [9:19:35 AM] understand and can relate to, I think has been a tremendous upgrade, and we've seen it in last two real incidents. I think I also really appreciate the way you do make sure that all of us have that information as quickly as we can so that we can get it out in different ways to more people. So I just communication, I think is key in these continued and probably more crisis situations that we're going to have disaster situations that we're going to have. And the momentum that you all have right now is really pretty, pretty great. And I just want to say thank you for that and encourage it. The other thing is I want to say thank you to the Austin energy customers who are paying attention to that and are signing up to get notifications and things of that nature and continue to encourage people to do that as well. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [9:20:37 AM] you, Mr. Chairman. >> Well said. Mayor, any other council member harper-madison. >> Thank you chair, I appreciate it. Not a question, just a compliment. And I'm glad Amy is sitting right there because that's who we talk to the most. So Amy, thank you. We appreciate you. Those updates as regular updates. You know the countdown 700 out 60 out 2010. You know that real time update is so helpful with responding to constituents in real time. So I really appreciate that very much. And then, you know, just how quickly you guys were able to restore services was impressive. I mean, even just driving through neighborhoods that are directly adjacent to mine, the damage was, I mean, just really extraordinary. So I just wanted to say thank you guys for all the effort and the hard work. I know it it was a plug. So thank you. Just acknowledging the effort. >> Appreciate it. Member Laine. >> So I also, as you know well, Stuart and Amy have a lot of concerns about reliability and how quickly services are restored. And I also want to take the opportunity to thank you very much. From the moment [9:21:38 AM] you very much. From the moment that I took this office, you have been extremely responsive to my concerns, and this is one more example of it. Then during this particular storm, I actually was on the upper deck of 183, unable to move while it was all going on, still quite far from my district on my view, and I'm so grateful that it was not a big effect. But. And yet I still got effective communication in my district. And with that, we'll say nothing else and leave it to all the rest of y'all who were more impacted. But I also wanted to just say that out loud. I really appreciate what you've been doing also, so far as interim. Thank you. >> Councilmember Siegel. >> Thank you, chair, and thanks to ctm for fixing my computer here. But yeah, I also wanted to join the chair and mayor and my fellow peers thanking Austin energy for your powerful response. You know, Amy Everhart, you know, coordinating a lot of your assistance were very much in touch with my office as well. And just Stuart, personally, I want to thank you [9:22:40 AM] personally, I want to thank you for coming to district seven. You know, walking the lines with me, knocking on doors. We even had a rare bird that we had to figure out how to move along as it was nesting while also getting the power back on. So really appreciate the coordinated response. And I know I had constituents reach out to me that were several blocks away from where we were walking, and they were like, oh, we heard that Austin energy and the council members in the district and just showing up like that and showing face and talking it through with people, I think really made a big impact on letting people know that their concerns would be addressed. I want to also ask just, you know, given the amount of money, it's costing us energy to make repairs following this microburst and giving, given the increasingly frequent severe weather events, is Austin energy having to kind of change its plans for how to accommodate the increased frequency of these events and whether that impacts your budget? >> Yeah, great question and thank you for your comments. So right now, you know, of course, I think you're all aware of the [9:23:41 AM] I think you're all aware of the increasing uncertainty in terms of FEMA funding and aid and reimbursements on storms. This doesn't rise to that threshold. But, you know, the future of FEMA funding is very uncertain. And, you know, we're not optimistic about it at this point, nor are our peers in the public power sector. And so we are, you know, through through the groups that we're a part of, making our concerns heard in Washington about the necessity of getting these these kinds of, you know, funds to reimburse distribution, outage response efforts. It's just another example, really, of, you know, I think our chief financial officer, rusty mania, said it recently that bad things can happen and they do. And that's why we need the financial resilience as a utility as well, to just be able to weather any of these kinds of storms because they are getting more frequent, they are getting more severe. [9:24:41 AM] they are getting more severe. And so we just have to be there for our customers. We can't sit any of them out, and we just have to have the resources that we need to be able to respond. Even in the face of uncertain federal funding. >> Okay. Thank you. Back to you, chair. >> Thank you, councilmember qadri. >> I'll keep the theme going. Just want to thank you all again for Amy and Stuart, for y'all's help and constant communication. Normally, the last text I get, you know, at night is from my mom saying good night, but it was for me all also saying good night but also giving updates. So really do appreciate that and really do appreciate the folks who are who are on the ground, you know, the boots on the ground, making sure that the lights came back on and then also really do appreciate being able to coordinate with you all and doing that pop up at a headquarters a few days after. Council member duchen. >> Thank you, chair, again to build on some other comments here. First, grateful you all were able to address, I think in particular the expectations of customers that had outages in the area in a what I thought was [9:25:42 AM] the area in a what I thought was kind of appropriate way. Not in some cases it we were one of the last areas to get power back for five days. And I think not overcommitting or under committing there was probably really helpful for managing that situation. And so I appreciate all of y'all's help doing that. I have a couple of questions and one comment. One, one question is just to understand, in events like these, what is really driving the costs that you all experience is the mutual aid. Is it the cost of actually repairing things infrastructure? Can you speak to that for a moment? >> Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a combination of the things that you mentioned. A lot of it is the mutual aid crews that were coming in that we're paying for, that are working long hours. And the 91 poles that I mentioned, the 52 transformers that I mentioned, all the conductor. And so it's a combination of personnel time and equipment. [9:26:42 AM] personnel time and equipment. >> Thank you. The other thing I wanted to touch on was I think the mayor started this was appreciation, the communications front, not just with the expectations but but also flagging a couple issues too. I think when we talked out there, we recognized that there was a particular challenge where you had, in some cases like ours, folks that were without power for days, and then we were communicating via text or electronically in some way, and these folks had no way to check them because they had been without power, not able to charge devices. So I'm curious if that's a conversation we continue to have about how to create some level of redundancy, or maybe how to advise customers to take preventive action that, you know, one of the unfortunate things that I've seen is in, in, in that neighborhood and others where people get frustrated and just buy generators, and that's the answer. And I suspect not everybody can do that. And so I think we probably need to continue to talk about how do we address how to reach people in a [9:27:44 AM] address how to reach people in a smart way. I know you all went door to door. I know y'all had other strategies, but maybe making some additional channels available or efforts to try and connect with people that may not be able to just get the communication you're sending because they have no power. And the last thing is grateful that I think we're going to be able to work on some sort of joint event or town hall, and I think after budget season. So I'm looking forward to that. So thanks for all of your help and support with getting that arranged. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And just to follow up, that is one of the concerns and challenges that we've had all along is, you know, getting getting word out to customers in and out of the event as it, as their batteries are depleted and as they're less and less able to get word. And we've incorporated that into a lot of our emergency preparedness pop ups that we've done at our walk in payment centers with, you know, batteries and, you know, hand-crank radios and those kinds of things. But it's what will continue in terms of going door to door and figuring out other strategies of getting the [9:28:44 AM] other strategies of getting the word out, and we'll continue refining it. But it's a it's a challenge for sure, and I don't think we've quite solved it, but we'll continue trying. >> And I don't know if I've got the answers either. I mean, my carrier pigeons and smoke signals are probably not exactly the thing that we need to solve that. >> Council member archer. >> I wanted to ask about the cost. Where in your budget do you account for that? Does that come from? >> So in in our budget, we, we put a contingency. There's a there's a level of contingency in our budget. It's quite small I believe it's you know, for a $2 billion budget, we put $20 million of contingency in our budget. And that's for emergency events like this. So, you know, we're talking about a 1% contingency at Austin energy. We'd like that to be a little bit greater. But that's the level we've been able to get to in recent years. And so when things like this come along, [9:29:45 AM] things like this come along, we're not we're not budgeting for it, but we're putting we have a contingency slot in that in the budget to be able to account for these things unless they exceed that amount. >> And I'm I'm sure Maura blew well past the contingency. I'm curious, over the past few years, how has that amount compared to what we've needed, right. >> Yes. And you know, that contingency sometimes also has to account for if you have a critical failure that was not anticipated at a generation plant or, you know, all kinds of things. So it's not just that that contingency amount is not just for storm response, but for any of the unexpected things that could go wrong. And yeah, I, you know, I my recollection is we our reimbursement that we got from winter storm is you know about that much 20 million. But we have to bridge the gap. We're never going to be made whole even if there is a reimbursement. But we have to get through in the meantime. And [9:30:46 AM] get through in the meantime. And essentially what that's going to do if it exceeds that amount is it's going to chip away at our days cash on hand and just, you know, deplete our our cash reserves. >> Thank you. >> Very much. Appreciate the question and the conversation about reserves. You know, we've always as you know, we've always had a backstop, FEMA, other sources that can come through an emergency. And I'm not sure that's that's less true. I don't know how true it is, but it's less true today. And that really does put a kind of an urgency around the discussions around not just Austin energy's reserve amounts, but the city's as well. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Let's go ahead and move on to item two. Item three, the semiannual briefing on the implementation of Austin energy's resource generation and climate protection plan by deputy general manager and chief operating officer, Lisa martin. Miss martin, the floor is yours. >> And we were so nice to him. This is where we get to be mean. No no, no. [9:31:47 AM] No no, no. >> Well, let's see what she has to say. >> All good. Good morning, chair vela, vice chair Siegel mayor and committee members. I'm Lisa martin, Austin energy's chief operating officer. And today, I'm providing a progress update on our resource generation and climate protection plan to 2035. My slides are going to cover two main topics. First, I'll cover progress to key metrics, and then we'll switch gears and I'll talk about some implementation project highlights, starting with some key metrics. And I want to start with the overarching goal of the 2035 plan, which is carbon free by 2035. So the yellow bars you see here are the historical data. And we had our highest percentage back in 2022. We're currently sitting at 65% carbon free as a percentage of load. That drop in recent years is due to multiple factors that we discussed at length during the generation plan process, namely congestion, meaning transmission lines are overwhelmed by too much energy from where the generation is created, and moving it to where we need it curtailment, which is when [9:32:48 AM] curtailment, which is when resources are go offline because there's too much energy in a particular place and demand growth, simply delivering more energy overall dilutes our percentage of carbon free energy as a percentage of load. But simply put, our carbon free resources aren't going as far these days due to those factors and others. Among all of our efforts, though, that we'll hear about today for the resource generation plan implementation, have this metric in mind, and they look for ways to bring the percentage back up. Also, on these slides you'll see in the sidebar notes that are pointing to ways where we're working to reach those goals. So in this case, increasing local solar and local batteries can help combat congestion. So can import capacity increases. Adding more wind and solar in places where there's less congestion. And then of course, taking advantage of new technologies and program as part of our culture of innovation. In this next series of slides, I'll focus on progress towards the goals that are set forth in the plan. The solid bar shows the progress to date, and the hashed bars show [9:33:49 AM] date, and the hashed bars show the remaining amount to the goals. So the chart on the left speaks to energy efficiency. Our energy efficiency programs have had fantastic achievements since they originated in 2007. We've reached 844mw installed capacity, or 86% of the goal. As of the end of last fiscal year. The remaining amount is a challenge, as it calls for an average of 40mw per year. And the consultant study from nv energy insights reflected an achievable potential of about 30mw annually. This, plus beneficial electrification. Electrification means like more electric vehicles and more electric appliances means that our megawatts may be going up. But as we shift to goals of avoiding greenhouse gases, we'll still continue to see benefit to the system. The chart on the right shows thermal energy storage, and we are at 28mw as of the end of the fiscal year towards our goal of 40mw by 2030. Shifting to demand response. We have a near-term [9:34:53 AM] response. We have a near-term goal in 2027, as well as a 2035 longer term goal. Demand response refers to how much electricity we can call upon to reduce summer peaks when electricity is scarcest and most expensive, we can currently achieve 48mw reduction, or 62% of our near-term goal, which is 78mw. And as you may recall, about a month ago, we added more than 150 city facilities to commercial demand response and all. There are now 195 city buildings enrolled, which is an estimated 6.4mw of demand response overall. Switching gears to local solar, we have enormous positive momentum with the launch of our solar standard offer and the pending launch of our solar for all programs. We had the most successful year in 2024, generating 16mw of additional local solar installations. And you can see we're on track to exceed that in fiscal year 25. However, the ultimate goal of 405mw by 2035 necessitates exceeding our [9:35:56 AM] necessitates exceeding our unprecedented success every year for the next ten years. And so there's also recent changes to the federal tax incentives, which eliminate residential solar tax credits as soon as January 1st of 2026. So there are a number of challenges on the residential and local solar front. Now I'm going to speak more about local battery storage in another slide, but I want I'd be remiss if I didn't share that we're well on our way to our 125mw by 2027 goal, in addition to the 14.6mw that's currently installed on our system, we are bringing to you a contract for authorization for 100mw, pending your approval and final negotiations, and we'll be well on our way to 125 megawatt goal. This next slide changes gears a little bit. And in the resource plan, you also asked us to report out on several environmental impact metrics. On [9:36:56 AM] environmental impact metrics. On the left we have some graphs of portfolio stack emissions. The top is carbon dioxide and the bottom is nitrogen oxides. You'll see those numbers are decreasing year over year. Historically, carbon dioxide has been as high as 6 million metric tons in years that are beyond what's shown here on the screen in yellow. You can see that in 2024, it was less than 2.5 million. We also measure carbon intensity. That's on the right hand side of the slide. Carbon intensity is a measure of how much emissions are produced per amount of energy generated. And the guardrail is shown as that dotted line. The guardrail sets an appropriate upper boundary to ensure emissions are trending downward, even if the energy generated is increasing due to growth or other factors. And so the guardrails that were set during the gen plan were the average number from 2021 to 2023. And you can see that in 2024, our annual our actual carbon intensity is below the guardrail, both across our entire portfolio, which is the [9:37:57 AM] entire portfolio, which is the top blue chart. And here locally in Austin, which is the bottom Orange chart. Okay. Now we'll shift gears to talk about some updates on four key efforts that we've been working on since the plan was adopted. The first is the 2024 international energy conservation code, which you adopted in April, and it became effective earlier this month. Adoption of this code sets the city of Austin as an industry leader in energy building codes and green building development. And it's so it's one of the ways that we lead with energy efficiency. The second update is on the nv energy insights study. You may recall that we had nv performing a third party assessment of the market potential for a number of things energy efficiency, demand response, and local solar. The report, which is now final, inform the goals that are set forth in the plan. Although some stretch goals were set beyond the current market potential. Study, the nv report also sets the foundation for the future shift to greenhouse gas avoidance goals. In the center of the slide, you'll see some [9:38:59 AM] of the slide, you'll see some cost estimates and the report estimates yearly customer energy solution program spending will need to more than double to meet achievable megawatt savings outlined in the study from 32mw, 32,000,000 in 2025 to over 69,000,000 in 2035. The gen plan, as you know, set extremely aggressive goals that didn't always include the impact on rates when adopted. And as a reminder, though, the reason that we the gen plan leads with customer energy solutions is because we know the importance of these types of programs. They're clean and they're customer friendly. These goals have to strike the balance between being achievable yet cost effective. And so some of these results may not be cost effective, especially as we try to squeeze out the last little bit. But part of our strategy for reaching goals in areas includes a thorough analysis of how we're measuring our programs, and we're nearing the end of a selection process for an evaluation, measurement and verification consultant who will keep us aligned with the best industry practices for how we measure the portfolio and identify new areas of savings. [9:40:00 AM] identify new areas of savings. And we plan to bring in rca for that contract to council in the coming months. And finally, we have to consider what customers are willing to adopt in the area of demand response. For example, we're entirely dependent on customers willingness to enroll in those programs and then to engage in curtailment when the doctor events are called. So sometimes there are shortfalls in what we can provide with customer energy solutions, and we have to make up for those by the rest of the generation mix to meet our customers needs. And one way we do that is by increasing our local utility scale generation, including batteries and renewables. We'll see that in a moment when we go there. But I need to pause for a moment and frame one of the major, complex complexities that we're facing here. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out some of the challenges and uncertainties around procuring those renewables and batteries. The one big beautiful bill act eliminates production tax credits and investment tax credits for wind and solar beginning in 2028. And so to [9:41:01 AM] beginning in 2028. And so to qualify for those credits prior to elimination, the resource must begin service before December 31st, 2027, unless it begins construction within a year of the bill's adoption. There's also, of course, geopolitical tensions that continue, and they're impacting supply chain and cost for many components of renewable resources. And we also know that there's foreign entity of concern requirements that come into effect for all projects at the start of next year. So a number of upward battles to continue to work towards. All right. That said, we're still moving forward as best we can. And on to a bit of good news. You'll recall that we issued a battery storage rfp in early February, and we made quick work of the analysis to identify top candidates. And so I'm very proud to say that there's an item. It's number 16 on your council agenda on Thursday to authorize negotiation and execution of a utility scale battery storage contract with [9:42:01 AM] battery storage contract with Jupiter power. This contract is up to 100mw, local battery storage and up to four hours in duration. It is intended to be sited within Austin energy's service territory, although it will be outside city limits, and the expected commercial operation date is the end of 2026. So this is the one that will go really far away in towards our 125 megawatt goal. If all goes well, it'll just put us just shy of that goal. But we do have another ongoing discussions for a second potential battery contract that should help us reach the final goal. And then finally, I'll end on some more good news. The solar standard offer program is proving very popular. It allows commercial property owners to lease space to solar developers, creating a revenue stream for them without an upfront capital investment. And so we just launched the program around the turn of the year, and there are already ten projects pending install. Together, those [9:43:02 AM] install. Together, those projects would more than double the capacity of our community solar program, so it's always nice to be able to close out on a good note. A couple of good notes, actually. And that concludes our semiannual update. We've got a lot of work underway for the gen plan. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Thank you very much, miss martin. Any questions from ouncil member alter? >> Thank you so much. Right where you left off on our solar programs. Does I read in a recent igrow memo the solar for all program. We may or may not be able to rely on that funding. Can you just give an update on that? >> Yeah. Richard, can you come up and help support? I'll start with just the basics of it. It sounds like that funding is continuing from what I'm reading. But Richard, can you keep me honest here? >> Absolutely. Good morning. Richard, vice president of customer energy solutions. And yes, all indications are to date [9:44:04 AM] yes, all indications are to date that that funding is going to continue. As you know, we're part of a coalition for the state of Texas that had this was all part of a $7 billion award grant. Texas got 250 million. We got 32 million of the 250. Harris county is the prime. And we're in constant communication with them. We have no indications that there's going to be there's certainly risk, but we have no indications that there's an immediate plan or threat to take away those funds. >> And what's the timeline or expectation on when those funds are supposed to actually be sent to us? >> They're not they're not sent to us. It's all a reimbursement model. And they have to be spent over five years. >> All right. At just looking over the past six months. That gives me pause, but we'll all hope for the best on that. I wanted to also ask, as it relates to our solar programs, you know, looking at the tax [9:45:05 AM] you know, looking at the tax bill that is now not only just going to make energy more expensive for everybody, but one of the cheapest forms, solar is losing a real appeal as it relates for residents for that 30% tax credit. So I'm curious, have you thought about what our $2,500 incentive, whether we might need to adjust that to be able to still meet our goals, recognizing that just that payoff period is changing when someone goes to install solar without the 30% from the federal government. >> Yes, we are absolutely considering that. But we should also recognize that there's been a trend of which Austin energy is experiencing the same trend that's happening nationally of a smaller and smaller percentage of residential jobs that are actually being incentivized. And there's a number of reasons for that. Large providers have been pulling out of programs, and we're no exception. I won't name [9:46:07 AM] we're no exception. I won't name the providers, but they've all been pulling out because they want a cookie cutter approach to how to approach the solar market, and they don't want to customize utility by utility. So there's large providers that have been pulling out. So we've seen, you know, a decrease. We're probably about 50% right now. 50% of residential solar is incentivized, 50% is not. And that trend continues downward. But to your question, yes, we are absolutely considering that. >> That's very interesting trend. Who are you running or in charge of the demand response program or. I know we've been thinking about an enhanced program or revamping that program. Is that fall under you as well? >> Yes it does, sir. >> What is the status of our demand response program and where we want to take it? >> So we have a number of plans in place for expanding our demand response program and [9:47:08 AM] demand response program and understand that demand response and our battery program go hand in hand. And as such we have everything. Well, as Lisa just alluded to, we have everything from utility scale batteries all the way through customer sited batteries. And on the demand response front, it is the most challenging portion of our resource and generation plan for the reasons that Lisa cited. So we are very focused on it. It is a significant part of our investment in terms of where we're proposing to spend dollars, but it is very dependent on customers participating. So a lot of our attention and focus and thinking goes into how do we convince customers to participate more. And incentive is just one portion of that. >> So all. >> Right, thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. Council member Siegel. >> Thank you, chair. And thank you, deputy GM martin and vp genes. I had a kind of a few [9:48:09 AM] genes. I had a kind of a few wide ranging questions. But first, Lisa, would you mind would you prefer if we save on the battery questions until Thursday? Or could we get into that a little bit now with the battery rfp. >> You're free to ask some questions. >> Sure. Okay. Great. So I understand we're looking at 100mw of battery storage on Thursday's agenda. I also heard that there might be potentially a second respondent to the rfp. Could you share anything about that today? >> Yeah, simply that we are continuing negotiations and working with the second potential counterparty. And that that second contract, if we're able to bring it to you, if things go successfully, it will actually put us above our 125 megawatt goal by 2027. >> That's great. That's exciting. Thank you. And then I understand there might be a pilot geothermal facility. I'm wondering if you could share any more detail about that. >> Yeah. So the pilot geothermal facility is one that we've reported on a number of times over the last year. It's five megawatts. And it I think general manager Riley mentioned [9:49:11 AM] general manager Riley mentioned this during one of his previous updates that it's been hit with a number of challenges specifically related to tariffs and in some cases, just increased cost supply chain situations. We continue to work with the counterparty to try to rescue that project. Last update I heard was that it looked like it was more on the favorable state. It does look like it's maybe moving locations from east Texas to south Texas, but in a part that isn't as congested, I think. And I think that the partnerships they're working on, including with Austin energy, are looking like they'll be able to break ground later this year, with energy delivery expected potentially late next calendar year. So a little later than we had hoped. But it's still it's still surviving thus far. And we'll continue to try to rescue brydan. >> Thank you. And on the theme of these tough market conditions, as we try to contract for renewable energy [9:50:13 AM] contract for renewable energy sources like battery and solar, has the landscape changed? Is it more difficult to contract those energy resources? >> It is. You know, I imagine that when we do our next rfp, we're going to see different types of proposals, increased costs in a number of ways. What we're seeing right now is in the conversations we're trying to continue to have with those who have previously offered into rfps, that counterparties are facing more and more uncertainty as the rules are changing and, and kind of settling. And so it makes it harder for them to bring a solid offer to us, which makes it harder for us to bring it to you and find one that's that works well for our ultimate customers. But our teams continue to work as best they can despite the situation. >> Okay. Thank you. Then the last question, and maybe for a subsequent. But one of the things the council is looking at is increasing natural gas prices. And we're involved in a case regarding that. And I'm wondering if there are additional beneficial electrification initiatives that [9:51:13 AM] electrification initiatives that the city could look at that would help, you know, customers find an alternate to a higher natural gas prices. >> On the beneficial electrification front, we're also looking at expanding opportunities for beneficial electrification through cooking. So, you know, that's cooking is an area yet to be explored. >> Okay. Great. We'll keep looking at that. Thank you. Chair. >> Thank you very much. A couple of questions on the solar numbers and the battery numbers for that matter, in terms of the local capacity. That includes private as well, right, for individual homes that have battery storage that we can draw on that that distributed kind of model. Do those numbers include both you know, are kind of owned and or managed generation and other generation, as long as it's within our, our, our area. >> As long as it's in our service territory specifically for battery storage, the 14.6mw, [9:52:14 AM] for battery storage, the 14.6mw, a majority of that is installed on residential that we may not yet have control over, but I see it as a maturity model as more and more customers adopt it and as we continue to enable it, it's within our local service territories providing some value to our community, whether it's the owner or the broader grid. >> Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, in a crisis situation, those batteries are there to be used. And that's going to reduce the overall load that, that we have to, to, to provide. And the, the, the stack emissions slides, that's all Austin energy sources, whether within or outside of our. >> When you're looking at stack emissions. So the left hand side that is across our entire portfolio. >> Yes okay. Got it. Thank you. And then you mentioned the foreign entity of concern. What is that exactly. >> That really has to do with certain countries. The one that keeps coming up in articles is, [9:53:15 AM] keeps coming up in articles is, is China and their involvement in various projects. And if they are involved, then it can impact the tax credits sooner than some of these other dates. >> Okay. >> And I'm sorry, I was just going to say there is a lot of complications to those rules that I'm glossing over here. And so I just want to make sure that the memos from government relations and whatnot really are probably the best place to go for some more details there. >> Got it. And I just I ask because in my capacity as a board member of capital metro as well, we run into similar concerns. There's a lot of federal funding in transit. And there are kind of buy American provisions in transit, which again, I understand. However, that really does limit the types of equipment that can be purchased quite significantly and potentially raises the cost quite significantly. Prior to this, you all does Austin energy have a lot of limitations or can [9:54:16 AM] have a lot of limitations or can you all kind of globally source, you know, transformers or whatever other kind of equipment that you need? >> Well. You know, when it comes to you mentioned transformers, right? We there are certain capabilities to source from other countries, and in many cases we do. There's always different regulations, the lone star infrastructure protection act and whatnot. And then as buy American provisions that come into play in different ways. Again, the specifics of that I'm not prepared to speak to here, but. >> No problem. Understood. I know that there was when there was a transformer shortage. I know that that really kind of we started to look in every nook and cranny for transformers. And I know that's an ongoing concern. Then finally toward council member alter's questions with regard to the reimbursements, have we or any other members of the coalition, have we actually gotten dollars [9:55:17 AM] have we actually gotten dollars back from that grant yet? >> No. Our first submission is going to be with a higher that we are in the final steps of completing now. And that will under this grant, that will be our first expense that we're submitting for reimbursement. And we took that path deliberately to go slow. There's three ftes that are part of this grant. We're moving forward on one. Just in the event that it doesn't get reimbursed. >> Fingers crossed that we actually get the money. Thank you very much and appreciate the briefing. And then let's go ahead and move on to item four, a briefing on the overhead distribution resilience study by our CEO. Again Lisa martin and her team. Miss martin, the floor is yours again. >> Well I will give the floor to our two other presenters, but I'll just set the stage here. You know, at a previous utility oversight committee meeting, we shared with you both, David [9:56:17 AM] shared with you both, David tomkinson, vice president, Austin energy and a member of 1898, one of Michael Cody's colleagues came and presented to you about the results of the undergrounding feasibility study. And this is a second part of that type of work, focusing on overhead distribution resiliency. And so I'll turn it over to David and to Michael. And they'll be here to answer any questions you have as well. >> Thank you Lisa. Good morning mayor and council members again. My name is David Tomlinson and vice president of electric system engineering and technical services. And I'm here with Michael Cody with 1898 and company. It's the consulting arm of burns and McDonald's to present the results of the overhead hardening study. This study is one major step in the in developing a comprehensive distribution resiliency plan for the residents of Austin that will guide us over the next ten years and beyond, and make our electric infrastructure more reliable and resilient. For our agenda, I'll give a brief system [9:57:21 AM] agenda, I'll give a brief system overview and then some background, and then Michael will present the results of the study. Then I'll come back and we'll wrap it all up and discuss next steps and take any questions. With that, I will also ask that everyone please hold any questions until the end. We have quite a bit of material to cover here today, so as background, recent events such as Yuri mora and most recently the may 2025 microburst reinforced the importance of investments to strengthen the our electric grid. After Yuri, we applied for a grant which is building resilient infrastructure and communities from FEMA and Tatum. And in 2003, we were awarded a grant for the for our overhead resiliency study. The goal of the study is to assess the current state of the overhead distribution system for opportunities to harden, automate sexualize, to enhance load, shed critical load isolation and Colo pickup [9:58:23 AM] isolation and Colo pickup capabilities during both blue sky days and severe weather events to bring everybody back up to speed. Since we last provided an update, we're working towards a comprehensive distribution resiliency plan. As you see there in the middle, this plan will merge existing reliability programs such as circuit hardening, wildfire mitigation, vegetation management, etc. Best practices identified in both the underground and now overhead hardening study results. Again as background Austin Austin energy has approximately 12,000 miles of distribution lines, 7000 of it is already about 60% of is already underground, and 5000 miles remains overhead. We recently completed an undergrounding study to see what it would cost to underground the remaining 5000 miles of lines, and the estimated cost was 50 billion with a B, and it would take decades. So the overhead study that we're going to be presenting today provides [9:59:24 AM] presenting today provides alternatives to make our system more resilient, but faster and a fraction of the cost to underground. Now, before I hand it over to Michael to present the study, just a quick note. The study did a deep, deep dive into critical protected infrastructure. You know, looking at equipment, locations, critical loads, circuit configurations, customer accounts by device protection settings, etc. So it's a lot of detail about our, our system and so much of the study itself, which is over 150 pages, goes into details about this critical protected infrastructure. And as such, we are only able to make public the executive summary. This is due to concerns that this information fall in the hands of bad actors. Now I'll turn it over to Michael to present the results of the overhead hardening study. Michael. Thanks, David. Yeah, thanks for having me. >> My name is Michael Cody, so I work with 1898 and co. We're part of burns and McDonald. We're the consulting arm like David said burns and Mcdonnell [10:00:24 AM] David said burns and Mcdonnell 1898 was the year that burns and McDonald was founded. So we've got about 600 consultants nationally, 50 of whom contributed directly to this particular study. So as we've been speaking this this morning, I mean, resiliency is a theme hitting the whole nation, but particularly here in Texas, resiliency is an emerging theme, an emerging topic that utilities are focusing on. So we've got a lot of recent Texas experience working on resiliency studies. And we were excited to be able to bring some of those lessons learned here to Austin. So like David said, this study focused on the overhead distribution system, which accounts for about 42% of the system, about 5000 miles. It was over a year long study that combined really detailed technical analysis with also high level strategic planning. And it included three main tasks. We've got the three main tasks shown on the screen. [10:01:24 AM] main tasks shown on the screen. We have the as is state. So assessing the current system we have feeder coordination studies. So feeder level protection and automation. And then task three is the future state where we define a more resilient future state through interviews and industry benchmarking. All right. So first starting with where we are today is the as is state of the distribution system. We have kind of the four main areas of this analysis. We've got the as is state really is the foundation. Everything we do going forward, whether it's investments or technology, it all has to start with an understanding of where we are today. So first is standards compliance. So we looked at Austin energy's current system how well it aligns with their own. >> Excuse me sir just one second. We're having a little problem with a light over there. [10:02:26 AM] problem with a light over there. And I believe the electricians are here to make a quick repair. And we're going to have to recess for about ten minutes or so to let them fix it. So sorry to interrupt. You want to deal with this very quickly. So the committee will be in recess for ten minutes. >> Thank you. >> Good morning again. Let me go [10:11:42 AM] >> Good morning again. Let me go ahead and call the meeting of the Austin energy utility oversight committee. Back to order at 1011. A quorum is present. I know some of the members are drifting back in, but let's go ahead and continue with the presentation. If you want to just back up a slide or two so we can all kind of get our bearings and but let's go ahead and move forward. Thank you very much for your patience and thank you for the crew that took care of that dangling light. >> Awesome. Appreciate it. All right. So back in it. Reminder we've got the three tasks as is feeder coordination and future state. Now getting into what we did in the as is state. We looked at the standards. How compliant is Austin energy and what's out there on the system capacity analysis? How much flexibility do we have for present load and future load load shed? How well can Austin energy respond to an ercot level directed event and then Der [10:12:43 AM] directed event and then Der hosting capacity as well? So getting right into the recommendations, there's a lot of analysis behind this, but we'll jump to the recommendations. What came out of it. Prioritize replacement of legacy or high risk infrastructure. So we found overall Austin energy's distribution equipment is highly compliant. However, there are some aging assets like with all utilities, but it just points to the need for more proactive inspections, assessments and then eventually replacement programs. We did find 14 substations that were nearing their operational limits, which should be tracked and evaluated. Maybe closer planning around those 14 substations and then potential upgrades down the line. We found opportunities to expand load shed flexibility. Austin energy can currently meet their portion of the ercot emergency load, but enhancing through reclosers and switches could increase the load shed capability and then minimize impact to customers. [10:13:44 AM] impact to customers. Additionally, we found some opportunities for data integration and cleanup across the systems. Opportunities to improve standards and improvements to the public guidebook, and then small tweaks to the hosting capacity methodology. All of these actions to help Austin energy prepare for this for their future state challenges. All right, so once we had kind of this as in as is baseline, we zoomed in to perform feeder coordination studies. These are detailed individual circuit studies where we looked at placing mainline reclosers on the backbone and also lateral reclosers on some of the branches. The goal here is how can we make each feeder more resilient and better segmented for faster response? Essentially, we're looking at putting the right devices in the right location on individual overhead feeders. And as a reminder here we've got reclosers. They act like smart circuit breakers, but instead of being out on the substation, [10:14:45 AM] being out on the substation, they're downline on the distribution system so they can automatically detect when something like a branch or a tree falls on a line shut off. And this will not require a crew crew member to go out there and fix it. So mainline reclosers protect kind of the large three phase trunk and then lateral reclosers the smaller branches, which together they all reduced the number of customers affected and help increase restoration times. So mainline reclosers we have this pod methodology. We put them out there again beyond the breaker to further segment. And these pods can kind of act like mini circuits. And when there is an outage in one of the other pods, they can then throw over to the adjacent circuit, assuming that there's a strong tie. And for lateral reclosers, we actually looked at prioritizing based on vegetation density, historical outages, customer counts, line length, and loads. So we did prioritize these devices when we placed them. And so the results of the [10:15:45 AM] them. And so the results of the device placement this is task two. We've got a detailed set of device placement recommendations. We identified over 600 mainline reclosers and over a thousand lateral reclosers, which gives us an energy options. It's kind of a I'm not saying that we need to necessarily deploy all of these devices immediately, but as budgets and time accommodate this kind of future state of these devices. So again, the overall goal here is to reduce fault impact, improve restoration speed, and then enable grid automation. And then the third prong of this study we looked at the future state. So our goal here was to step back and figure out what specific initiatives could help Austin energy get closer to where they want to be. So we conducted interviews from across the organization. We looked at engineering, field operations, asset management, all sorts of groups within Austin energy to [10:16:46 AM] groups within Austin energy to understand what was working, what's not working, kind of what is on their wish list for biggest opportunities. We heard about limited automation, resource constraints and vegetation challenges. And so the outcome here was 24 resiliency initiatives. And we grouped them into these five major themes that you see on your screen here. So we have infrastructure resilience. How do we modernize standards materials and assets. We have data driven operations. So leveraging data better to make more informed maintenance decisions or vegetation management decisions. Grid connectivity. So expanding automation monitoring and communication systems emergency readiness. So this is the people side of it. Improving coordination training and situational awareness. And then operational excellence strengthening governance and cross team collaboration. So these initiatives we tried to hit kind of a whole swath of [10:17:46 AM] hit kind of a whole swath of items that that we think are conducive of a, of a, of a successful resiliency plan. And so some of these Austin energy, a lot of these Austin energy is already doing, but we identified actions that were above and beyond what Austin energy is currently doing. And we ranked and scored them appropriately. And we also had moderate and aggressive versions of these included with tactical actions that Austin energy can take. All right. So as far as the recommendations, we found that Austin energy has a really strong foundation, especially in infrastructure and incident response. But to reach this future state, this really industry leading resilient grid, we think you need kind of a step change, which Austin energy we think would would take a coordinated, enterprise wide action. So we recommend this phased approach that you see on your screen. Kind of at the top here. There are near- term initiatives that can start right away delivering early impact [10:18:47 AM] away delivering early impact while preparing the organization for a longer transformation. And then on the bottom there in the green, simultaneously, Austin energy can be building a long term comprehensive program with things like dedicated leadership cross-department coordination, governance, and tracking. So we think this parallel approach, kind of combining the near-term with the long term, will enable a more coordinated, sustainable and effective resiliency program over time. So yeah, thanks again to Austin energy and to their team for all the time that it took for this study. We appreciate the opportunity and I'll pass it back to David. >> Thank you. Michael 1898 did a wonderful job. As far as the depth and just how thorough the study is with that. I know you've seen the slide before, but I just want to kind of bring it all back again. We now have all three legs of the stool. So we have existing reliability programs, underground feasibility study. And now the overhead resiliency study. And through all those and combined [10:19:47 AM] through all those and combined with best practices, it gives us the opportunity to create a comprehensive distribution resiliency plan for Austin. I'm happy to report that we've started drafting the plan, and the work from 1898 has set the table so that we can quickly compare underground versus overhead options, as well as moderate versus aggressive approaches for each feeder on our system. This will help us to evaluate the best overall solutions to improve reliability resiliency while keeping our rates low. Additionally, the overhead study highlights best practices and connecting distributed energy resources and makes recommendations to increase our hosting capacity. As far as next steps, we continue to analyze the results of the undergrounding study we received and are reviewing the results of the overhead study presented today, and we are have started writing the distribution resiliency plan. We will be engaging stakeholders in the coming months to inform both near and long term priorities in the plan, and we'll be back later this year to present the comprehensive distribution [10:20:47 AM] comprehensive distribution resiliency plan, a living plan that will guide us for the next ten plus years towards a more robust and resilient future. Thank you, and we're happy to take any questions. >> Councilmember. Councilmember. Laine. >> Thank you so much for coming back around on this. I'd like to start by following up on a couple of questions that we've discussed offline since the last time you were here. So I am wondering for the areas that the geographic areas, like the locations that are not prioritized for undergrounding will be will we be able to see, for example, hotspots that weren't financially aren't financially feasible for undergrounding? Kind of, but are they still caught attention? It's just not financially feasible. And then are will there be any sort of recommendation for an alternate approach that could resolve the issues that's more financially [10:21:48 AM] issues that's more financially feasible than undergrounding? Who would I look to for that conversation if it's not you? I'm not sure. >> Yes, I can either. I can speak to it here and then also offline as well. From a standpoint, is 1898 did a great job as far as you know. Again is Taki by section with an estimated cost. And then they've now given us an alternative overhead solution again that we can we haven't. It didn't include all the cost, but it talked about the devices, the placement. And we very quickly can come up with a cost. And so even places where undergrounding may, may make sense, we want to also consider, you know, you know for you know best use of, you know, funds and so forth. Yeah. Of course, you know for economics purposes and get the best product. The other thing is too is the overhead solutions in many cases can be deployed faster. And so because of that we can improve the system much faster as opposed to just doing, you know, spending a lot of money in one area. And then we look up ten years from now and we still have a long way to go. So they've really set us up for [10:22:50 AM] So they've really set us up for success, almost like a la carte that we can kind of pick and evaluate. So and I'm happy to talk about it offline as well. >> And you anticipated my next question, which is where it can be addressed more quickly and is not scheduled for undergrounding moving forward. Amy, will I have access to the full report so I can skim through some of the what I heard here? >> I think I think we can meet off. Yeah, we can meet offline to and answer any questions you may have. >> Okay. That sounds great. I'll get on the schedule. I have a couple other general questions. We've talked a lot today about the impact of weather on power outages. I have personally seen both recently and over the years, quite a few cars crashed into poles on the arterial arteries that go through my district. One was very recently on Anderson mill road problem area for cars hopping the curb and going through homes, walls and that kind of thing. And this particular time it crashed into a I don't know the name of it, but not your lowest level of [10:23:51 AM] but not your lowest level of power line, but one that impacted very broadly. And so I am wondering if in your analysis, you've already considered the impact of accidents on power reliability, or it's not part of what has been looked at as a factor. >> It was not part of this study. You know, we don't anticipate the cars to be off the road. But that being said is, you know, every situation, we can look at it and see if there's sometimes we have to put a pole in that location to serve a customer. But there there may be other opportunities elsewhere to move poles over and so forth. But I know when our design team goes out, they're looking at the best overall solution, considering all factors. >> I was hoping yeah. Go ahead Stuart. >> Council member let me just chime in there too, because a lot of the work that's underway with this study and Michael mentioned sexualization and reclosers. And so what we're experiencing and what we're experiencing when you're talking about a car hitting a pole that's hitting a main line and [10:24:53 AM] that's hitting a main line and you have this whole the whole circuit going offline, you know, 3000 customers, 2500 customers, something like that. The more we can do in terms of sexualization through reclosers and we can reroute power, we can have our system respond in such a way where the smallest number of customers, where you can segment that feeder up into, into sections, thirds or even smaller to where you have fewer customers who are actually impacted by that. So we might not be able to control for a car going off the road, but we can control for how power is getting rerouted and how we have the fewest numbers of customers impacted. So that whole circuit is an offline during during that period of time while that pole is being replaced. >> That's a great explanation of how you can reduce the impact on people. Looking also at that importance of preventing the outage to begin with, some of the areas that the areas that I am thinking of have also been a part of conversation between my office and dpw, and also, y'all have heard way too much about it [10:25:54 AM] have heard way too much about it from the dais already, and I'm wondering if I remember seeing previous summaries of why power outages are happening, perhaps in offline meetings. And I am wondering if we want to put heads together across those two departments, because perhaps when both pedestrian and pedestrian bike driver and homeowner safety are all at play and on top of it, we are potentially causing, through the transportation issues, more outages than might be expected in that area could help with sort of just another factor for prioritizing the underlying issue. I keep looking at you, acm Rogers. I'm sure. >> You're listening, and I can I can give you that. That is something we'll need to follow up about. But I will tell you that we do collaborate with the vision zero office and transportation public works already. So if they see issues where we're Austin energy has any kind of impacts. If it's, you know, if it's if we're seeing impacts. Similarly kind of to your example, if, if [10:26:55 AM] of to your example, if, if there's a road configuration or something, a lot of the time we're collaborating with them about lighting, street lighting because they might see something at night. That's so there is that collaboration and we can continue to kind of put our heads together. >> Okay. I'll share with both of your departments the maps of the areas where I've seen repeatedly over the years. Okay. And then last time you were here, I asked about wildfire risk in the balcones canyonlands preserve, in the areas where Austin energy and psc both have lines running, including some shared poles. And I think you were. Do you have anything to add to that line of questions. >> You're talking about specifically? That one pole where we're on the same structure is that. >> Yeah, there are two lines that go that way. And the larger question is, I know you had looked at fire risk, wildfire risk. But then as we were talking about that area that's along old spicewood springs road, there are issues that arise a little differently because we've got the Austin energy and peak sharing resources there in some cases. So I'm wondering if there are any updates to like, how you are [10:27:55 AM] any updates to like, how you are approaching that area. >> Yes. So well, two pieces of that. First one is from the wildfire. So that's one of the things that we realized with the distribution resilience plan. We have a lot of ongoing efforts, you know, that are great efforts within within Austin energy. But really, you know, they need to come together so that when we visit a portion of town, you know, I don't want to do over hardening and then, oh, wait, we got to come back and do wildfire. That's not a good use of funds. And so part of that is while there is a standalone wildfire plan, it is it will be referenced in because everything has to come together in distribution resiliency plan. So that we go out there. We do work in an area once make the needed upgrades to, you know, the best overall, you know, upgrades for the risks that we identify and then and then move on to the next area. In regards to the poles, you're absolutely right. There are a few structures just because of geographically where they sit that they do cross. And they're highly, highly denoted on the pole just from a safety standpoint of who's on bottom, [10:28:58 AM] standpoint of who's on bottom, who's on top, being that, you know, PC, they have similar voltages to us, but they may even have a different voltage as well. And so part of it is we have to make sure, you know, safety first. But there are a few structures like that. We're trying to see if we can separate those. I don't have anything to report today, but we are still looking into that. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Happy to hear that you're incorporating those concerns. And also definitely want to highlight them again. And I'll provide both of your departments with the maps of the specific areas that I can think of. And I appreciate you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? Comments. Mr. Duchen, council member duchen. >> Chair I just a couple of questions. >> Thank you about the. First of all, is it possible to get the 24 actual items without getting the full report, or is that something that's included in that full report that we just look at the whole thing? >> I think we can do that. >> Okay. >> I think we can provide that. [10:29:58 AM] >> I think we can provide that. >> And then you mentioned the timeline on getting the update to distribution resiliency. Are you thinking like that's December or November? >> We I don't think it's officially on the schedule yet, but it would be this calendar year. We're targeting approximately November. >> Okay. And then the last thing is, I know one of the items you mentioned, one of the categories was learning from emergency events and responding to them and emergency readiness. I know one thing I've discussed with in the wake of the microburst storm with interim director Riley is hardening. And he mentioned and we started looking at southern California Edison and the work they've done in terms of hardening to prepare for not just wind, but also wildfires, which is something that councilmember Laine just touched on. I'm curious to level that you've had the opportunity yet to go into that level of detail in this report, or if that's coming later this year in November, when you are going to report back. >> This this report does touch in on the as far as hardening, not specifically on wildfire [10:30:58 AM] not specifically on wildfire that feeds into and that's really where the comprehensive distribution resiliency program will bring together. But we haven't we have an ongoing program which, you know, Michael had referenced. You know we already have a lot of good things in the works now where we're doing pole inspections. We're going out there. And it used to be, you know, if a pole was deemed, you know, bad. Well we just go replace it. Technology is approved. We can go out there and I call it trusting the pole or so forth in the weak spots and can get significant more life out of it. I know we're we're evaluating from the microburst to see and to my knowledge is everyone that was trust held up during the storm. So it's an opportunity to extend assets. And that can be done very quickly and cost effectively versus, you know, as we stated earlier today, about taking a half a day to change out a pole and all the cost and getting all the equipment, everybody's backyards and so forth. So we I think we did 3000 poles last year, 8000 this year. And then, you know, we'll continue with, you know, 8000 a year. And so we're we're actively underway. >> Okay. But that's replacing the poles without the non pardon [10:31:59 AM] the poles without the non pardon pole. Is that right. Until you. >> That that is that is inspecting them top to bottom. It is trusting them where that can extend the life of it. And then in some cases I think about 8% or something that are inspected has been coming back to where they need to be replaced. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. >> Yes, sir. >> Just a quick question on that Venn diagram that you were showing with undergrounding and the hardening and the existing reliability programs, what are our existing reliability programs? Kind of what goes in, in, in that circle. >> So we have wildfire mitigation. We have overhead. Well it's like it's circuit hardening but it's overhead hardening that we have from a standpoint we you know we're removing open water secondary. We have programs like that. Of course the pole the pole inspections that I, that I spoke to vegetation management as well as we also underperforming circuits that maybe, you know, it's not just, you know, poles, [10:32:59 AM] it's not just, you know, poles, but we'll go out and do coordination studies. We're trying to target about every five years to go through the entire system and make sure everything coordinates, I will say something that's really nice to the study, is that was included in the study to give us that upper hand. You know, we talk about the sexualizing portion, and we have a lot of the settings already ready to go. So I think we're able to deploy faster. But when I say programs, there's a lot of good work that's being done. But we're finding that it's a little bit more disparate, and we need to bring it together into a comprehensive resiliency plan. So we're all looking at the same north star. >> Great. And that plan should be available toward the end of this year. Basically, you're putting together all those three components into a resiliency study that will be presented, I guess, later this year. >> Yes, sir. That's correct. >> Great. And will that have costs associated also with the overhead hardening study portion of it? >> Absolutely. We've already included money in the budget that y'all will be reviewing. And then, you know, we kind of forecast out for you know, I know it's a one year. But ultimately for the next five years as we initially you know, [10:34:00 AM] years as we initially you know, one is we're not stopping what we're doing now even while we're riding distribution resiliency plan, we're actively doing all the things that I've spoke about, but we want to double down on that. And so I think there's approximately $10 million in there to kind of get going for 26 and do more. We think on the front end it's going to be more engineering and, you know, setting up the jobs and so forth to go work. So it'll be a little lighter on the front end. But it does. It does grow to approximately $20 million a year. And, you know, five years out. And then as we get into it, we may find that things are more economical than we thought. And it's moving faster, or we may find that it is more expensive or it makes sense to, you know, underground somewhere. And so that's why I use the term living plan. It's something that will have to be reviewed annually just to make sure that we have proper funding for it. >> Got it, got it. It's a learning process. And then finally on, I know we had discussed a possible a pilot program for the undergrounding. Would that be a part of the resilience study that's coming [10:35:02 AM] resilience study that's coming out in 25? >> That absolutely will be a consideration. And again, it's just looking at is what would it cost to underground and what is the benefit. Is there an overhead alternative that makes sense for, you know, fraction of the cost or. No really needs to be underground. And so from that it will be literally section by section looking at where it makes sense up to including pilots. >> Great. It would be good to at least get a preliminary sense of where it would make the most sense to do some kind of undergrounding pilot and get some kind of sense of the cost and scope and whatnot as part of the study. Thank you very much. With no further questions. Councilmember harper-madison. >> Thank you. Your question inspired a question for me. I'm no stranger to complaints about overhead, equipment apparatus in my neighborhood and adjacent neighborhoods. Neighborhoods like mine, where it's just so distinct, all the bazillions of wires and poles everywhere on a really small street. And so just [10:36:02 AM] really small street. And so just sort of curious about that's purely esthetic. And so, you know, I certainly recognize that when you're doing the prioritization that some things come, you know, function probably comes before esthetics. But just when we do think about where it makes sense, I'm trying to, you know, categorize that in my head. Can you give a little summarization of like where it makes sense? A couple of examples. Neighborhood commercial spaces adjacent to the highway. Like where does it make sense? >> So on the undergrounding study, there's 33 sections that were identified where the benefits may outweigh the cost. And those 33 benefits were not where I think we're most people would think, which is, you know, in the backyards and in neighborhoods, so forth. It was along the main lines coming right out of substation because the most customers are impacted in that way positively by by doing so. And so that's what was that was something that we saw there that being said is I really do think is every every situation is a little bit [10:37:03 AM] situation is a little bit different. And what you have to look at it when you do, when you start getting into the neighborhoods, the challenges become is physically converting it, where all the houses are fed overhead to underground now all of a sudden is you have to start addressing the house and how it's taking service to house. And that's the reason why the costs are so high, right? That being said, is in no way are we closing the door on that. That is that is what we want to do is, is literally have side by side comparison to look at it and see where it makes sense, especially if it's on, you know, on parity or the benefits just drastically outweigh. I think it's something we should consider. >> I appreciate that, and I just think, you know, things that are so relative, like where it makes sense, that's difficult to quantify for our constituents. I get what you're saying. But everybody is what makes sense. Is it the same? Obviously. And to my point about, you know, my concerns being purely esthetic on 13th but on 12th, where, you know, exposed power lines that are drooping and draping like, you know, curtains, I think it's a deterrent for business, for commerce. And so given, you [10:38:04 AM] commerce. And so given, you know, we're getting 11th and 12th street gaps and redevelopment on 12th street sometime in the in this decade, I hope, and the work being done in the African American cultural heritage district in general, investments that we're that we're, you know, pointing towards. 78702 in general, all the 12th street has power lines that are ugly and out. And, you know, given that future development with caps and stitches, potentially, I wonder, how do we account for construction cap in the highway and potential construction burying power lines, like how do those systems not duplicate one another and get planned adjacent to one another? >> So as far as cap and stitch, I mean, we're very early on on that from a, you know, design standpoint. We've looked at different approaches, you know, whether underground and overhead and it's a it's an engineering challenge because ultimately you're, you know, putting lines essentially in a, in a, in a [10:39:05 AM] essentially in a, in a, in a bridge. I don't I don't have anything specific today. But it's one of those things is as things get more and more dense, sometimes you're forced to go underground just because you just physically can't, you know, don't have the room for it. So that has to be a consideration as well. You know, a good example is all, you know, all downtown is underground. It's just because of the sheer amount of wires it would take to serve that area. So that's a consideration as well as as we continue to become more and more dense as a as a city. >> That's good to know. And it's something that I'm taking into consideration. And hopefully you guys will continue to consider as it pertains to the northeast planning district, a lot of that district is already developed, so it would be another one of those retrofit the whole city for the, you know, cost of 1700 bazillion dollars or, you know, start fresh to some degree. And I think in a lot of ways, we're starting fresh with some of the areas in the northeast planning district. So maybe just starting the project with anticipating that will start underground. I just wonder if that's the kind of protocol that we can approach for perpetuity. [10:40:07 AM] for perpetuity. >> The most cost effective way to do underground is fresh. As you're as you're saying, start with a blank slate. And when you do conversions, you can't just convert one house or one property. You really got to do the whole street to make the economics even, maybe even get close. And even then it's still vastly more expensive than than overhead. But that being said is, if there is an opportunity to start fresh anywhere, that that can definitely be one of the considerations. A lot of underground residential subdivisions and so forth. They take that approach because again, they're starting with, you know, yeah, you know, blank slate. >> I don't think a lot of us up here can say that. I know councilmember Fuentes and I have a lot of start fresh land in our districts. And so, yeah, something for us to take into consideration as some of the developments are coming to D one and two. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Thank you very much, council member. And thank you very much for the report. Looking forward to the year end report that brings everything together. And council members, the next item is the briefing on Austin energy's weatherization program. But we are an hour and 45, [10:41:09 AM] But we are an hour and 45, almost 45 minutes into this. We have the work session and then we have audit and finance. And unless there's an objection, I would suggest postponing the weatherization to the next meeting so we can get on with what may be a longer meeting today. Seeing no objection, we'll go ahead and postpone that item until the next meeting, and we'll go ahead and move on to item six, identify items to discuss at future meetings. Again, I think weatherization will be. And but again, happy to take suggestions and just let us know your thoughts. And then of course lastly the on our agenda are the previously distributed memos to mayor and council. Between the last two meetings. No action to be taken. That's just for informational purposes, for council and for the public at large. And with no further [10:42:10 AM] at large. And with no further work before the committee, we will go ahead and adjourn at 1042, and I will turn it back over to the mayor.