May 15
Austin Energy Highlights Clean Energy Progress, Customer Energy Solutions
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
Austin Energy’s 2025 Annual Report highlights major progress in clean energy, grid resiliency and customer energy solutions during a milestone year for the utility. In FY25, Austin Energy celebrated 130 years of service while advancing implementation of the Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035 through record solar growth, expanded demand response participation and continued investments in electric system resiliency.
Eversource Energy CEO Joe Nolan is “not interested” in the development of data centers in the company’s service territory, as it’s “only going to drive up the price of energy,” he said on the company’s first quarter earnings call on Thursday. “It’s of no value to our residential customer – actually, any customer,” Nolan said.
ComEd’s Energy Efficiency (EE) Program won a prestigious industry award from the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE). The Illinois-based utility won the Stars of Energy Efficiency award in the Power & Utilities category from the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE). The win was announced at ASE’s 33rd annual gala on May 6 in Washington, D.C. The award highlights ComEd’s efforts to lower energy costs for customers facing high energy burdens.
Memphis Light, Gas and Water, in partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority, will integrate its Share the Pennies program with TVA’s Home Uplift initiative to better serve income-eligible customers with energy efficiency improvements. Under this new structure, TVA will manage program operations, combining Share the Pennies funds with Home Uplift services in MLGW’s service area, consistent with its approach across all Local Power Companies.
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Industry News
Pennsylvania needs more energy. Data centers are pushing demand skyward, utilities can’t build new capacity fast enough, and electric bills are on the rise. Medium-sized solar installations – smaller than utility-scale farms but larger than home rooftop arrays – could help ease the pressure.
Exelon is adjusting its capital spending plan to lower its utility expenses next year by $350 million in an effort to help keep electric bills as low as possible, company officials said last week. “As we adjust our plan to reflect current realities, we are also leaning into areas where we see strong visibility and clear need, most notably in transmission,” said Exelon President and CEO Calvin Butler.
Home electrification projects, such as installing rooftop solar and battery storage, are currently affordable for only one in 10 U.S. households. But if they’re more widely accessible, new research suggests, home energy upgrades have the potential to unlock cost savings – as well as significant capacity as record load growth pushes the grid to its limits.
Quick – ignore the map above and take a guess: Which three states get the highest share of their power from wind and solar? If you said Iowa, South Dakota and New Mexico, well done. If you had Texas or California in there, fair enough – but neither of those clean energy behemoths made it onto the podium, per the latest report from trade group American Clean Power Association.
