Austin Energy's resiliency plan
Preventing the next disaster.
Austin Energy has released a new resiliency plan that details the steps the utility will take over the next decade to prevent or at least minimize future climate calamities.
The plan comes nine months after a consultant hired by AE estimated it would cost $50 billion to put all of its wires underground, an idea that some on Council were curious to explore in the wake of Winter Storm Mara, when much of the city lost power for nearly a week due to trees falling on overhead wires and utility poles.
The analysis by 1898 & Co. concluded that the benefits of burying lines only outweighed the cost in 33 of the roughly 5,000 sections of AE's service area. The resiliency plan largely affirms what the consultant report says: there are other ways to protect the utility's infrastructure besides digging.
