August 31, 2010
New Leader for Power Generation Starts at Austin Energy

Jackie Sargent began her duties this week at Austin Energy as the new Senior Vice President for Power Supply and Market Operations.

Sargent comes to Austin Energy from the Black Hills Corporation, a diversified energy company. Black Hills owns and operates electric and gas utilities serving areas of South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. She brings more than 20 years of experience that includes management positions in all areas of generation operations, generation planning, dispatch management, wholesale power sales and technical support, including responsibility for power plant design and start ups.

Sargent also served as Director of Rates at Black Hills over a two-year period, which included rate case management.

"Jackie's substantial planning and operational experience across the complete range of generation options including renewables will be critical to our needs," said Cheryl Mele, Austin Energy Chief Operating Officer. "That includes goals to utilize cleaner generation options, manage the integration of more customer-owned generation such as rooftop solar and to be prepared for the advent of electric vehicles."

Austin Energy has a generation portfolio of about 2,400 megawatts of traditional generation including nuclear, coal and natural gas and also contracts for more than 450 megawatts of renewable energy, mostly wind power from West Texas. Its goal is to generate 35 percent of its generation needs from renewable energy by 2020. Austin Energy also participates in the wholesale energy market in Texas where it can buy and sell energy as part of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operators of 85 percent of the electric grid in the state.