Navigant Consulting gas plant study report delayed

Jeff Vice, Austin Energy’s director of local government relations, announced at an Electric Utility Commission meeting on Monday that the results of an independent study relating to a proposed natural gas plant will not be released this month, as previously anticipated. Austin Energy staff projected in August that the report on the 500 megawatt combined-cycle plant and renewable alternatives, which Navigant Consulting is putting together, would be ready for commission review this week ahead of a presentation at the City Council Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee on Thursday. The report, Vice said, is now likely to head to members of the commission for review in early November, and Austin Energy is attempting to arrange for the Council committee to hold a special called meeting for review in early December. “The rushed schedule, originally, was more or less tied to decision-making related to solar that is moot, that’s already been made,” said Vice, referring to Council’s recent decision about the city authorizing new solar contracts. Although they are separate elements, both the solar decision that Council has made and the decision that it must make in the near future about the gas plant are part of the Austin Energy generation plan that the previous Council passed in December.