Austin Energy will give EV owners money to adjust summer charging

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Energy is offering new incentives to customers with electric vehicle chargers to help manage energy use this summer.

Austin Energy launched its Power Partner EV program, a voluntary enrollment opportunity for customers with EV chargers to make adjustments to their energy to reduce community grid output during the peak summer months. Similar to its Power Partner Thermostats program, Austin Energy can make slight tweaks to those enrolled to reduce or temporarily pause charging during a "power partner event," officials said in a release.

Those power partner events will mainly happen from June to September, during the warmest and highest energy use periods in Texas, the release added. The events will likely happen between 2-7 p.m., with a maximum cap of 15 events each month.

Adjustments would be made to enrolled Level 2 EV chargers or other qualifying vehicles, Austin Energy officials said. Customers can also override any charging tweaks made during power events and resume charging at normal levels.

To sweeten the deal, Austin Energy is offering customers a $50 bill credit to enroll in the program, as well as an additional $25 credit each year they remain in the program.

Lindsey McDougall, Austin Energy's demand response and technical services manager, said she hopes the program encourages customers to be more conscientious of their energy output and make small tweaks to assist local community grid strength in the summertime.

"As we encourage EV adoption, we want to make sure that all of those EVs charging on our infrastructure are not doing any harm to that infrastructure," McDougall told KXAN.

It's especially pertinent as the city's EV footprint continues to grow. Currently, there are more than 42,000 registered EVs in Austin, along with more than 1,600 Level 2 charging stations overseen by Austin Energy.

Alongside voluntarily enrolling in the program, McDougall stressed simple measures EV owners can take to limit any grid disruptions. Those include charging vehicles in the evening and overnight hours, when demand levels are lower and renewable energy production levels — such as wind energy — is higher.

"With managed charging, we can align charging with renewables," she said. "We get a lot of wind power at night, so we can align the charging when there's a lot of wind power being produced at night. So with that alignment with renewables, we can do a lot of environmentally friendly initiatives. We can also avoid wholesale price spikes that ERCOT has — so by doing that, we can reduce rates for everyone."

More details on the Power Partner EV program are available online.