March 30, 2009
Austinites Invited to Submit Generation Plans

Austin Energy today unveiled an information-packed, interactive online game that invites Austinites to recommend the types and amount of generation that should be added to meet projected power needs of the Austin community through 2020.

“Change Your Generation” provides the cost to construct, the time needed to build and the carbon emissions for nuclear, coal, natural gas, solar, wind, biomass and geothermal generation. Participants are asked to recommend the types and amounts of generation that should be added incrementally to meet projected electric demand in the Austin community over the next 11 years. The game will only let players select generation options that can actually be produced in the given time frames presented.

Once an individual completes their generation plan, the suggested plan is scored to show how it fares in cost, greenhouse gas emissions and achieving City Council goals of 30 percent renewables, including 100 megawatts of solar, capacity by 2020.

The online game is part of an Austin Energy Public Participation Process that has been underway since November to survey community preferences on how to power the Austin community in coming years. That public process has included:

• Town Hall Meetings: A total of eight town hall meetings have been held since November throughout Austin (300 attendees);
• Stakeholder Meetings: Additional meetings have been held with a dozen customer stakeholder groups such as large commercial customers, environmental groups, chambers of commerce and community outreach groups, to name a few (400 attendees);
• Web site: www.austinsmartenergy.com was established as the information base for the Public Participation Process. The site provides a proposed generation plan through 2020, resource information, minutes from the public and stakeholder meetings (205,000 web site hits);
• Resource Guide: A 37-page Resource Guide was developed that provides background and the pros and cons to the various generation types. The Resource Guide is available on the web site (2,000 distributed);
• Customer Survey: A customer survey was developed to solicit general feedback on the types of generation most preferred by Austinites (290 surveys submitted);
• Online Game: The online game will allow Austinites to recommend their preferred generation mix for the future.

The Public Participation Process will continue this spring with additional town hall and stakeholder meetings. The goal is to present Austin Energy generation recommendations to Council this fall. A summary of the results from the customer survey used throughout the public process, comments received at town hall and stakeholder meetings and the results from the online game will be included in the report to Council this fall.

This online game is available at www.austinsmartenergy.com and through www.austinenergy.com. The game, which is an excellent educational resource, will be available for the foreseeable future.