The LCRA Board of Directors on Wednesday approved an $858 million business plan for fiscal year 2017 that continues LCRA’s mission to enhance the lives of Texans.
The business plan includes total revenues of $858 million, with about 19 percent of that amount paying for fuel and purchased power. The Board also approved a $410 million capital plan for fiscal year 2017, including energy, water and public service projects to support a growing Texas.
LCRA continually focuses on providing exceptional service to its customers at a low cost and is committed to making every LCRA endeavor outstanding. Through a combination of reducing costs and improving the way it competes in the wholesale power market, LCRA has identified more than $350 million in expected rate relief over the next five years for its wholesale power customers.
“LCRA is proud to provide essential services – power and water – for a growing region,” said LCRA General Manager Phil Wilson. “We provide those services with an eye toward controlling costs while maintaining reliability and safety.”
LCRA is the primary wholesale provider of electricity in Central Texas, selling wholesale electricity through long-term contracts with retail utilities, including cities and electric cooperatives. LCRA in recent years worked closely with the Rates and Resources Council – a group of LCRA wholesale electric customers – to find ways to reduce costs. The steps LCRA has taken have resulted in a wholesale power rate in fiscal year 2017 that will be 22 percent lower than it was in fiscal year 2015.
LCRA Transmission Services Corporation, one of the largest transmission services providers in Texas, is helping to make electric service in Texas more reliable and supporting the growing need for power throughout the state. In the next five years, LCRA TSC is planning to invest about $1.2 billion to build new transmission facilities and improve existing ones.
LCRA, which manages the six Highland Lakes and the lower Colorado River, also is making investments to increase regional water supplies. Two of the Highland Lakes – lakes Buchanan and Travis – are LCRA’s water supply reservoirs for the region, providing drinking water for more than 1 million people and water to industries, businesses, the environment and agriculture in the lower Colorado River basin. To increase supplies, LCRA is building the Lane City Reservoir, an off-channel reservoir near the Texas Gulf Coast. It will be the first significant new water supply reservoir in the lower Colorado River basin in decades. The reservoir, which LCRA expects to begin operating in 2018, could add up to 90,000 acre-feet of firm water to the region’s supply. Firm water is available even during a severe drought. The new reservoir reduces demands on the Highland Lakes, benefitting the entire basin.
LCRA also plans to invest more than $43 million over the next five years to complete as much of the design, permitting and land acquisition as possible for additional new regional water supply projects, so LCRA will be ready to proceed when a customer approaches with a need for those new supplies.
LCRA also is working to expand its wholesale power customer base, both in its traditional service area and through WSC Energy, a nonprofit LCRA corporation that can sell power outside of LCRA’s traditional service area. Expanding LCRA’s wholesale power business enables LCRA to spread its fixed costs over a larger customer base, which helps keep rates low for existing LCRA customers.
“LCRA has been committed to serving Texans for more than 80 years,” said Timothy Timmerman, chair of the LCRA board of directors. “These business and capital plans provide a clear vision, goals and strategies that will enable us to continue fulfilling our mission to enhance the lives of the Texans we serve.”
The LCRA 2017 fiscal year begins July 1. A link to the 2017 LCRA business and capital plans is available at http://www.lcra.org/about/financial-highlights/Pages/business-plan.aspx.
Source: LCRA Business News
