Denton audit cites 2025 plan proposal; 2024 revision unreconciled

Denton’s October 2026 energy-portfolio audit follow-up marked 14 of 16 recommendations implemented and two in progress. Both unfinished recommendations concern the city’s renewable-energy offset goal: updating its resource plan and documenting how renewable energy is counted.

The audit says implementation of an updated resource plan had been delayed due to City Council direction. Separately, a city FY 2026 Q1 progress report describes a revised 2024 Renewable Resource Plan as approved by City Council, informed by community feedback and among FY 2024–25 accomplishments. The audit does not directly reconcile that report with its in-progress classification; neither account resolves the relationship between them.

The audit also recounts that in June 2025 Denton Municipal Electric recommended creating an Integrated Resource Plan intended to replace the 2018 plan. At that initial meeting, according to the audit, Council directed DME to seek public input on a proposed Renewable Energy Policy, but did not then give specific policy direction or indicate readiness to adopt it. The audit does not say whether the 2025 proposal explains, supersedes or satisfies the reported 2024 revision.

Two recommendations remain in progress

The plan-update recommendation calls for revising the 2018 Denton Renewable Resource Plan to reflect expected increases in retail electricity load, changing conditions in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market and progress toward the city’s goal. The other recommendation calls for written procedures explaining how renewable generation, renewable-energy certificates (RECs), compliance premiums, customer generation and power-purchase-agreement generation count toward the offset. It also calls for safeguards against counting the same megawatt-hours twice.

The audit says DME reported meeting the 2018 plan’s 100% offset goal each year from 2021 through 2025, and issuing annual reports on prior-year performance since 2023. That reported performance is separate from the status of written calculation procedures: the audit still classified the procedures recommendation as in progress.

Certificate treatment was described as a proposal

In its account of DME’s practice, the audit said the utility continued applying RECs toward the goal without retiring or selling them while a formal policy remained unadopted. It described a proposed policy for certificate treatment, not an adopted policy. DME told the auditor that formal Council direction was needed on whether to retire certificates or allow them to expire, citing their real property value. That REC-specific explanation is separate from the audit’s statement that Council direction delayed the resource-plan update.

The follow-up reviews recommendations from two City Auditor energy-portfolio audits issued in March 2022. Its October 13, 2026 City Council work-session item was listed for a report, discussion and staff direction. The follow-up concerns Denton Municipal Electric and its accounting for the city’s renewable-energy offset goal.