LCRA approves FY 2019 plans

On Wednesday, the Lower Colorado River Authority’s board of directors approved a $949 million business plan for Fiscal Year 2019. The LCRA is Central Texas’ primary wholesale electricity provider and manages the six Highland Lakes, two of which are used to provide drinking water to over 1 million customers, and the lower Colorado River. The board also gave the green light to $368 million of capital spending for “energy, water and public service projects to support growth in Texas,” according to the authority’s news release. In 2019, the LCRA has planned “a full slate of projects to address electric transmission system reliability, respond to Electric Reliability Council of Texas system needs, meet projected area load growth, respond to existing customer needs and connect new generators to the system,” and over the next five years it “intends to invest about $1.2 billion to build new transmission facilities and improve existing ones.” As for its water-related projects, the LCRA will continue its ongoing rehabilitation at the Mansfield and Buchanan dams. In addition, in 2019 LCRA will start up operations at the Arbuckle Reservoir, “the first new water supply reservoir in the lower Colorado River basin in decades.” View the full plans here. “With the fiscal year 2019 business and capital plans, we are crystallizing our vision of supporting this growing state and continue to work to provide excellent customer service when providing these diverse and important services,” said Timothy Timmerman, chair of the LCRA Board of Directors.