{"id":27319,"date":"2025-10-30T05:05:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/27319\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T05:05:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:05:28","slug":"austin-energy-makes-historic-investment-in-battery-storage-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/27319\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Energy Makes Historic Investment in Battery Storage \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, Austin Energy announced<\/a> a major milestone in its progress toward fulfilling Austin\u2019s climate goals \u2013 a large-scale battery storage contract with Jupiter Power that will provide 100 megawatts of power toward AE\u2019s goal of 125 megawatts by 2027. As the utility draws closer to its 2035 deadline<\/a> of becoming 100% carbon-free, it\u2019s balancing Austin\u2019s climate goals while trying to keep customers\u2019 bills low and the lights on. This project helps it do all of that. \u201cIt\u2019s more than an investment in infrastructure \u2013 it\u2019s a commitment to a cleaner, more resilient energy future for Austin,\u201d said Mayor Kirk Watson in a press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Large-scale battery storage is a key way to reduce strain on the statewide grid, protect customers from volatile prices, and decrease reliance on fossil fuels. In the summer of 2024, solar provided 25% of Texas\u2019 power<\/a> during the hottest hours of the day, and batteries carried that through the evening. \u201cWind and solar are variable, so they\u2019re not always going to produce power when demand is the highest,\u201d Stuart Reilly, AE\u2019s interim general manager, told the Chronicle \u2013 but a battery can charge when the sun is shining and deploy when demand is high. This one lasts for four hours, double the capacity of the typical ERCOT battery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Location was a major factor in AE choosing this contract, as the lack of statewide transmission line infrastructure drives up energy prices when those lines get congested. \u201cWe might have a really good solar energy farm in West Texas, or a really good wind farm in South Texas by the coast, but sometimes you can\u2019t get that energy adequately into Austin,\u201d explained Reilly. This battery, which will come online in 2027, will be built near AE\u2019s existing Webberville solar array.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a historic investment, but still a fraction of what AE\u2019s Resource Plan<\/a> calls for \u2013 300 megawatts of battery storage by 2035. In order to get there, AE hopes to use a mix of distributed community solar<\/a> and utility-scale solar like this. However, in August AE lost $32 million<\/a> in federal funding that would have added an estimated 20 megawatts of local solar panels for low-income Austinites. And utility-scale batteries are expensive \u2013 this one is $14.4 million per year, with a term of up to 20 years.<\/p>\n

Ever-changing technology is also driving up demand. \u201cIt used to be the clean energy transition was: How much more green can I get?\u201d said Reilly. \u201cNow, it\u2019s how many more EVs, manufacturing or data centers can you provide power to? Meanwhile, costs are skyrocketing for electric components. We need the flexibility to be able to respond to that.\u201d Last December, AE added gas \u201cpeaker\u201d plants<\/a> to its Resource Plan, which operate during times of peak demand as a stopgap to keep prices low while AE looks for long-term renewable solutions. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s challenge upon challenge upon challenge,\u201d said Reilly, who was announced<\/a> this week as AE\u2019s new general manager starting November 2. \u201cHaving tools like a four-hour battery is going to help us, but there\u2019s no silver bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article appears in October 31 \u2022 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, Austin Energy announced a major milestone in its progress toward fulfilling Austin\u2019s climate goals \u2013 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,15959,18862,134,133,18863,18864,1551,18865],"class_list":["post-27319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-energy","tag-austin-energy-resource-generation-and-climate-protection-plan","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-battery-storage","tag-energy-infrastructure","tag-feature","tag-jupiter-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}