Press Releases, News & Technical Documents
October 5, 2014
Pecan Street participants featured in EDF Clean Energy Campaign
September 18, 2014
Smart grid project moves closer toward implementation
July 24, 2014
Time Mag: Tracking Carbon Footprints and Saving Money
July 3, 2014
Smart Grid Project Saves Money and Energy in Texas
Using smart grid technologies, the project provides 1,000 residences, 25 small commercial properties and three public schools energy data in real-time. Customers can now set and track utility bill budgets, use software to manage the electricity use of individual appliances, and even sell energy back to the grid when they are using less than they produce. By integrating smart meters, solar panels, electric vehicles and energy storage capabilities, the project is already seeing the benefits of smart grid integration and providing customers with control over their electric usage.
June 26, 2014
Time Magazine: Is this America’s smartest city?
The Pecan Street devices are even smarter than smart meters, recording data from different appliances essentially in real time. At any given moment, the Pecan Street engineers–who work in partnership with the University of Texas and local utility Austin Energy–know exactly how much electricity their subjects are using and how that use changes in response to the time of day, weather patterns, even fluctuations in power price.
June 25, 2014
Bloomberg on the Aging U.S. Grid
Some consumers are raving about the benefits of the smart grid, too. For Austin, Texas, resident Luke Downs, a participant in the Pecan Street project, access to the smart grid has changed his energy life. “Suddenly, I could see what I was doing,” he said. Downs, 44, lives in a 3-bedroom row house in what’s known as the Mueller neighborhood, a planned urban redevelopment on the grounds of Austin’s former municipal airport.
May 21, 2014
The ‘Home of the Future’ Makes Life Sweet and Neurotic (WNYC Podcast)
There’s a neighborhood in Austin, Texas where the refrigerators tell stories. The roofs are paved in solar panels. There are more electric cars per capita here in the Mueller community than in any residential neighborhood in America. It’s a kind of paradise and it could drive you nuts.
May 7, 2014
AC = 2/3 of home summer electric use
Homeowners and utilities in areas with hot summers already knew air conditioning was the dominant electric use between June and August. The latest quarterly research report from the research site WikiEnergy puts a number on just how much of that home electric use comes from air conditioning.
April 6, 2014