Commercialization
Pecan Street Inc. Brings Energy Research to Upstate New York and California’s Bay Area
(AUSTIN, TX – August 1, 2018) – A $1.1 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will allow Pecan Street Inc. to expand its groundbreaking home energy research network into New York and California. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Cornell University’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University, and […]
Pecan Street Inc. Names Suzanne Russo CEO
The board of directors of Austin-based research organization Pecan Street Inc. has named Suzanne Russo chief executive officer effective March 1. Russo joined Pecan Street in 2010 and has served in several roles, including chief of staff and chief operating officer.
Press Release: Pecan Street PLATFORM Provides Testing, Validation and Market Entry Support for Energy Tech Startups
Texas-based Pecan Street Inc. is now accepting applications from energy technology startups for its new PLATFORM program. Designed to leverage Pecan Street’s groundbreaking research on residential and small business electricity and water use, PLATFORM integrates data-driven market intelligence, product development and validation, rapid prototyping, and collaboration with venture funding and energy industry executives.
Attention startups! Apply to be part of Pecan Street’s PLATFORM for Product Launch
Start-ups with a clean energy hardware innovation targeted at the residential or small commercial sectors and who have a functioning prototype can learn more and apply here.
UT Inventor John Goodenough on Verge of Another Revolution in Battery Tech
More generally, the new battery could also help on the business side, for instance by enhancing the range of trucks. “It’s a plus across the board,” said Scott Hinson, the director of engineering for Pecan Street Inc., an Austin-based consortium trying to introduce new water-and-energy-use technologies into everyday life.
Could smart water meters one day be the norm in Austin?
With the “BluCube” developed by Pecan Street, there’s no need to change out the whole meter. Instead, a new register, with a plug for a transmitter that would send signals to the cube in the customer’s home, is placed on top of the existing meter body. And Pecan Street is working on an even simpler solution: a ring that could fit around any register and links up to a transmitter.
Startup Goes Public With Its Energy Disaggregation Results
Pecan Street’s Haskell noted that large-scale industrial and commercial power users have been using energy data for diagnostic and analysis uses for years. “The kind of work we’re doing is really focused at lowering the hurdle for people to utilize this capability to the point where a mobile app can use this data to save you money in your house, without you having to do much of anything,” he said.
Hinson in ei magazine: Residential Power Quality
As utilities across the country experience an increase in densities of grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) installation and electric vehicles (EVs), as well as shifting consumption profiles, an important question emerges: What is the impact of the modern home on overall grid control and stability? Pecan Street has an answer.
GreenTech Podcast: This Data on How Consumers Use Energy May Surprise You
In this week’s podcast, we’ll talk with Brewster McCracken, the CEO of Pecan Street Inc., about the organization’s analysis of consumer energy use, utility efficiency programs and electric vehicle charging.
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.
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.
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.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visits Austin, with praise
As part of a trip to promote President Barack Obama’s energy strategy, Moniz chatted with local clean energy companies and leaders, including clean technology startups from the Austin Technology Incubator and the cleantech cluster development group CleanTX. He also toured the Pike Powers Laboratory and Center for Commercialization, a testing bed and commercialization facility near the UT campus.
McCracken named 2013 Smart Grid Pioneer
Smart Grid Today named the 50 Smart Grid Pioneers of 2013 today, drawing upon its coverage of the industry over the last year. These are the experts and risk-takers to whom we turned to explain in detail the industry’s most newsworthy moves, insights, advances, setbacks and new concerns.