Energy
How Did Texas Solar Perform in a Snowstorm?
By Scott Hinson, chief technology officer, Pecan Street – Last year, we looked at how Austin’s stay-at-home orders affected energy use. This week, we dove into the winter storm data to see how solar panels performed and how they may have eased overall demand on the grid.
Pecan Street on CNN: Texas goes it alone on electric power.
Pecan Street OpEd on CNN.com – Texas grid independence is being called into question after ERCOT failed to meet unprecedented electricity demand and millions of Texans went without power for days in sub-freezing temperatures. To put it mildly, people are mad. But despite a lot of political finger-pointing, I've seen few people pointing in the right direction.
What’s Holding Back the Energy Future We’ve Been Promised?
Over the last 10 years of conducting research on electricity use and advanced technologies like electric vehicles and solar systems, my colleagues at Pecan Street have found there are four key technology roadblocks that are holding back innovation and adoption of cleantech products, services and systems.
The Role of Consumer Data in Clean Energy Deployment
An article by Pecan Street's CEO Suzanne Russo was recently published by Forbes about the role of consumer data regulation in accelerating clean energy deployment. This is Russo's first article to be published as a member of the Forbes Technology Council.
Pecan Street Joins Eaton Team to Improve Grid Reliability with Renewables
(October 2, 2020 — AUSTIN, TX) Eaton Corporation has convened a team of researchers, including Pecan Street Inc., to develop a next-generation grid services solution to improve the overall efficiency of the electric grid and to optimize renewable energy generation.
We Don’t Have Time to Solve Problems One-at-a-Time. And We Don’t Have To.
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street - We can’t solve all of our problems independently – we don’t have time. And science tells us we don’t have to. So Pecan Street is adopting a Wicked Solutions approach to all our work. We will apply our unique capabilities to identify and prioritize the wicked problems that sit at the nexus of climate change mitigation and adaptation and focus our effort toward developing wicked solutions.
Utility programs have helped customers weather COVID. Will they continue?
By Clayton Johnson, Communications Coordinator - To show the impact of the relief package, we compared utility bills at the reduced rates to the standard, pre-COVID rate. Energy use in 2020 increased by 14% in April, 10% in May, 2% in June, and 4% in July compared to monthly averages from 2017-2019.
COVID Five Months in: A Sustained Increase in Residential Electricity
By Scott Hinson, chief technology officer, Pecan Street - Pecan Street has been monitoring electricity use and generation from hundreds of homes in our research network for nearly a decade. Many of these homes have rooftop solar and electric vehicles, and we’ve been measuring each home’s total energy use as well as use from individual circuits, like heating/cooling, EV charging, refrigerator, etc. With all this data at our fingertips, we decided to take a look at how our participants’ energy profiles have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Your Data in Action
Over the past several weeks, our work has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and the momentum behind the racial justice and equity movement. As always, our home energy database has been central to the work we've accomplished.
Pecan Street Featured on CNN’s “The Global Energy Challenge”
Pecan Street's Chief Technology Officer, Scott Hinson, was interviewed for CNN's "The Global Energy Challenge" about shifting energy usage due to COVID-19.