Austin Energy staff urges authorization to pursue up to 400 MW of natural‑gas peakers; commissioners press for more analysis and stronger guardrails

Austin Energy staff told the Electric Utility Commission that its updated modeling shows the city faces rising local reliability and market‑cost risks as demand grows, and that adding about 400 megawatts of efficient natural‑gas peaker capacity would sharply reduce those modeled risks.

Lisa Martin, Austin Energy’s chief operating officer, framed the recommendation as part of the utility’s Resource Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035. She said staff modeling projects an average of roughly 575 "reliability risk hours" per year between 2030 and 2035 under the utility’s current portfolio plus newly contracted renewables and batteries; adding modeled peaker capacity reduced that risk to roughly 45 hours per year. Martin said a comparable amount of batteries in place of peakers returned the model to higher risk levels, particularly for longer‑duration events and extreme winter scenarios.

“Peakers are the reliability backstop,” Martin said, adding that the new units would use the latest emission controls, operate under run‑time limitations tied to permits and the plan’s emissions…