The big picture
Austin has been a longtime user of solar power, and currently has 29 active systems on various city-owned properties, according to AE. Solar installations in places like airport parking garages and on the Palmer Events Center roof generated 670,800 kilowatt-hours for the local distribution grid in the past year, saving the city an estimated $66,500.
Council member Ryan Alter said those totals could greatly expand with a renewed focus by city leaders, many of whom are supportive of various climate and renewable energy initiatives. City Council also recently passed a new resource plan for AE that calls to add hundreds of megawatts of new solar capacity in Austin over the next decade.
“Solar has proven to be one of, if not the cheapest, option for power generation. So if we are able to deploy solar at a large scale, that is going to keep rates as low as possible for customers," Alter said in an interview. “Sometimes prices will spike in Austin for a number of reasons, but if we can then at the same time be generating electricity here, that is a hedge to those price spikes because then we get paid that same amount we’re paying. And that has a significant impact to saving on peoples’ electricity bill.”
The approach
On May 22, council members unanimously passed a resolution from Alter asking the city to review places like rooftops, parking lots and underused land that could be used for new solar projects. The results of that study will go through public review and could shape some of Austin's future solar investments, and Alter said there are potentially millions of square feet that could support the new power infrastructure—both on city land and properties owned by other local governments or school districts.
"What I think we haven’t done so well is recognize that there is a lot of publicly-owned [spaces] ... that maybe individually aren’t super huge projects. But when you group them together, become bigger than anything we have done to date," he said. "Why we haven’t put that together and said, ‘Let’s make the most of it from a solar perspective?’ I don’t know why we haven’t but I’m hopeful now we will."
Council member Mike Siegel said the community objective set in AE's new Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035 would require thousands of acres of new solar panels in total. He supported a provision in Alter's resolution asking to consider worker protections, higher wages and prioritizing graduates of the new Austin Infrastructure Academy on the way to that solar goal.
"We want to make sure that the jobs we’re creating are good jobs, that they’re living wage jobs, that they have safe working conditions," he said.
What's next
Council members recently received an update on the local solar portfolio in May. A preliminary progress report on the new solar evaluation is due back by early September.
