In The News
A Surprise R&D 100 Award for Pecan Street and Our Partners
Are we excited about winning an R&D 100 Award? Absolutely. Are we trying to humble brag? Maybe a little. In reality, this award is a recognition of a fantastic start. We’re excited to continue our research and to dive even deeper into the changing and challenging energy system research that we’ve done for 12 years.
Restore OKC Brings Pecan Street’s Research Network to Oklahoma City
Restore OKC has teamed up with the University of Oklahoma and Pecan Street Inc. to help launch an energy efficiency and awareness program in northeast Oklahoma City. We’re already recruiting participants, conducting energy audits and installing equipment that will measure how these improvements affect participants’ energy use and costs.
Dr. Anissa Rodriguez Dickerman Named Pecan Street CEO
The Pecan Street Inc. board of directors has hired Anissa Rodriguez Dickerman, Ph.D. as chief executive officer. Dickerman’s tenure began September 1, 2023.
Meet Some of the Groups Making Solar More Accessible
by Jill Harlow – The most common question I heard repeated over the three days: How did you do your community engagement? Learning to authentically center on community needs and goals takes time, hard work, and often comes with many false starts and missteps.
Pecan Street Starts 2023 with Leadership Transitions
After nearly five years as Pecan Street’s CEO, Suzanne Russo has transitioned to the organization’s board of directors. Bart Bohn, a partner at venture capital firm ATP and a long-time collaborator with Pecan Street, will serve as interim CEO while the board of directors conducts a search for a permanent chief executive.
Inflation Reduction Act Sets United States on Path to Clean Energy Economy
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 sparks the country’s largest investment to address climate emissions and rapidly accelerate the transition to clean energy. Following is a statement from Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street Inc.
Canary Media: Smart Electric Panels in Homes Could Prevent Overtaxing the Grid
Canary Media – Utilities are worried that homes switching to electric heating, electric cooking and electric-vehicle charging will create major new strains on their power grids. And homeowners looking to go all-electric face steep costs if they need to upgrade their grid connections to handle bigger electrical loads. A new report suggests that both problems could be addressed by the latest smart electric panels.
Pecan Street on KXAN: Why One Austin Neighborhood Tracks Energy Use Down to the Circuit
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Every light bulb, microwave and electric vehicle charger — tracked! That’s what around 300 homes are doing in the Mueller neighborhood in east Austin. They’re doing it as part of a research project called Pecan Street, and the data they’re collecting could reshape energy usage in the years to come.
Pecan Street Inc. and GAVA Selected to Lead Solar Energy Innovation Network Project in Austin
Pecan Street Inc. and GAVA were selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to participate in the Solar Energy Innovation Network (SEIN) to discover transformative ways of accelerating equitable residential solar adoption in historically underserved communities. Seven other projects around the country were selected to participate in the SEIN program.
Press Release from NYSERDA Announcing Pecan Street as Utility Data Advisor
Pecan Street, an energy and climate research and development organization was awarded $400,000 as the utility data advisor to provide dedicated support to oversee and provide guidance to NYSERDA and DPS on data sourced from the utilities, such as energy consumption, grid capacity, and distributed energy resources and the technology needed to provide data to the IEDR. Pecan Street’s team will serve as a subject matter expert on utility data systems as well as participate in the IEDR Utility Coordination Group.
EVs and the Texas Grid (KXAN)
Pecan Street's Colin Rowan spoke with Eric Henrikson (KXAN-Austin) about whether the Texas grid can handle an influx of electric vehicles (yes!) and how these "rolling batteries" could (and should) be a solution for Texas leaders trying to increase the grid's resilience.
Pecan Street is Expanding its Residential Energy Research Network to Puerto Rico
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded Pecan Street a $100,000 grant to investigate how high-resolution residential energy data can inform the design and management of microgrids in Puerto Rico and enable the development of policies and economic structures for grid services from Behind-the-Meter (BTM) assets. This research will contribute to efforts to increase the resilience of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in the face of increasing threat from natural disasters caused by climate change.
Utility Dive: Energy equity depends on data, and experts say there isn’t enough of it
Utility Dive's Robert Walton recently spoke to Pecan Street Communications Director Colin Rowan about our effort to expand our volunteer research network in Detroit, MI.
Pecan Street to Develop Toolkit for Distributed Energy Resources Adoption at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
(AUSTIN, TX — June 22, 2021) The Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation awarded Pecan Street Inc. a $40,000 grant to bring its unique data and research capabilities to developing a Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) Toolkit for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Pecan Street will partner with Huston-Tillotson University in Austin to develop resources that support DER deployment on HBCU campuses to provide new revenue opportunities and support community resilience centers. The effort will produce an online DER planning and implementation toolkit geared towards the unique aspects of Texas HBCUs and technical support resources.
Grist: Your electric vehicle could become a mini power plant
Grist's Maria Gallucci recently spoke to Pecan Street CEO Suzanne Russo and Pecan Street Board Member Michael Webber about the potential grid impacts of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology. Read a snippet of the article below or read the full article on Grist's website.
National Science Foundation Awards Grant to Pecan Street for First-of-its-Kind Research on Regenerative Farming and Farming Communities
The National Science Foundation awarded its Smart and Connected Communities grant to Austin-based research organization Pecan Street Inc. The project team will explore opportunities and barriers for the adoption of regenerative farming practices, and seeks to better understand collective decision-making about land use management by regional farming communities.
Pecan Street Launches JupyterHub to Expand Access to Energy, Water & Transportation Datasets
Pecan Street launched new cloud computing resources to support researchers in unlocking insights from the world’s largest database on residential energy, water, and transportation use. Dataport JupyterHub is open to all current Dataport license holders.
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.
Greentech Media: The Solar ‘Duck Curve’ Might Look Quite a Bit Different Under Coronavirus
Greentech Media – As the coronavirus pandemic forces people across the country to shelter at home, utilities and grid operators are watching typical energy use patterns change in unpredictable ways, and trying to understand how this will affect their grid operations, power purchasing practices, and long-term plans. Austin, Texas-based Pecan Street Inc. may have some answers.
Upcoming Events and Conferences
Heading to a conference or industry event? See if a Pecan Street staff member is on the agenda. Each month, we will update the public events at which our staff will appear.
Forget DER aggregators, grid-edge intelligence will be the hallmark of the utility of the future
January 21, 2020 Read this story at Renewable Energy World Suzanne Russo, CEO of Pecan Street, has a pretty good grip on the future of the electricity industry. That’s because her organization is designing, creating, testing, and collecting data about new, low-carbon grid-edge intelligent devices in a real-life neighborhood setting. Pecan Street started in 2009 […]
Fully Charged Show Visits Pecan Street
The Pecan Street staff hosted Chelsea Sexton from Fully Charged a few weeks ago as they toured some of Austin’s energy-tech hotspots. Watch the Pecan Street episode here.
IEEE Spectrum: A Plug-and-Play Microgrid for Rooftop Solar
By Scott Hinson, CTO, Pecan Street - Pecan Street designed and built a residential energy-storage system that turns a home into its own microgrid. It’s a solution that addresses all of solar’s integration issues at once.
Utility Dive: ERCOT weathers steamy August, but could Texas become a winter-peaking system?
Shifting from gas to electricity for winter heating "would result in increased winter electricity demand peaks," the report found. "When combined with the reduction in summer peak demand, the increase in winter peak demand would flip Texas from a 'summer peaking' to a 'winter peaking' system."
E&E News: Blackouts are on the rise. So Austin is making a ‘microgrid’
Scott Hinson is the chief technology officer for Pecan Street Inc., a nonprofit research organization that focuses on ways to spread solar power to reduce the use of fossil fuels in electricity generation. Pecan Street is located in the Mueller neighborhood and has organized some volunteer homeowners to participate in the blackout experiment. It might expose them to infrequent losses of power.
E&E News Visits Pecan Street on their Electric Road Trip
Pecan Street hosted Edward Klump and Mike Lee from E&E News as they started their 1,000 mile journey from Houston to Nashville in an EV. Along the way, they're stopping to write and share news about what's happening in this fast-growing market. Review their Week One video recap and read their blog post that dives into our vehicle to grid research.
Austin SHINES testing solar + batteries as a clean, dispatchable grid solution
By Andrea Tosi, power systems specialist, Pecan Street Solar energy is ideal as a clean energy resource in places like Texas, where sunshine is abundant. But even in Texas, the sun doesn’t shine 24/7. This variability results in reliability issues for the grid. Energy Storage Systems (ESS) are crucial as solar penetration increases in Austin.
Utility Dive – Utilities have multiple ways to drive lower energy use
The data for Kopalle's research came from Pecan Street, an Austin-based non-profit that manages a neighborhood electricity test bed. Almost 1,000 homes have volunteered to have advanced metering infrastructure installed, capturing circuit-level, minute-by-minute consumption data along with generation data from dozens of homes with solar panels.
Pecan Street and Eaton Testing Demand Response Tech
Energy research organization Pecan Street Inc. and power management company Eaton are partnering to develop and test a next-generation residential demand response solution that will increase overall efficiency of the electric grid and optimize the use of renewable energy generation resources.
What California’s Rule 21 Gets Right and Wrong for Residential Solar
By Scott Hinson, chief technology officer, Pecan Street - Several of the requirements of California's Rule 21 will help encourage the installation of more solar and storage. However, there are two areas where Rule 21 lacks important features or functions for improved solar integration and grid resiliency.