Austin Energy

High temperatures caused 3,600 Austin Energy customers to go without power in Southeast Austin on Saturday.

Under the utility's proposal, a "typical residential" customer would see an increase of $15.56 on their monthly bills. It insists the hike is not related to last year's historic winter storm.

An Austin Energy representative could not definitively say whether changes the utility has implemented have made Austin better prepared for a storm like the one in February.

The city had wanted to shut down its portion of the plant by 2022 to meet carbon emissions goals. Austin Energy now says that won't be possible.

In the late 1800s, Austin's elite decided a dam was what was needed to attract more people and industry to the city. But dams weren't cheap. And to get taxpayers to foot the bill, it had to be built for the public good.

Rising gas price are fueling interest in electric vehicles while corporations and the government try to make it easier to get from point A to B without running out of juice.

To make sure the burden of any future outages are shared among more people for less time, the utility is looking to get big industrial or commercial customers to agree to voluntarily cut power to leave more for homes.

Austin utilities officials said almost 60 scam calls were reported this week. Four victims sent about $1,200 to the scammers, they said.

The utility says a map of its circuits, which determines who loses power and who keeps it during an emergency, is not something it can create.

In a phone call billed as a primer on “The Texas Two Step,” Public Utility Commission of Texas Chair Arthur D'Andrea talked about a lot more than repricing. He talked about natural gas, falling trees, Austin Energy and frog boils.