Infrastructure
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.
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.
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.
A Year After Winter Storm Uri, a Look at Smart Solutions to Strengthen the Grid
By Cavan Merski, data analyst, Pecan Street Inc. – Microgrids get name-dropped a lot. And for good reason. The promise of a smarter, more resilient, and cleaner grid is enough to make any energy geek swoon. But given all the buzz, there’s a short supply of guidance on how we can deploy microgrid technology at scale. Pecan Street’s new analysis puts our energy data expertise to work to answer part of the microgrid riddle – how can big data enable widespread microgrid deployment?
COP 26 Leaders Should Center Equity in Everything They Do – The Climate Fight Depends on It
Climate change requires all hands on deck. And it requires solutions designed to improve the way the energy system works for everyone. At COP 26, leaders are gathered to develop a global strategy for addressing climate change, and increasingly they’re prioritizing energy equity in the process.
Biden’s EV Charging Agenda Could be a Game Changer for Transportation Emissions
As climate action takes center stage this week at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Pecan Street will reflect on some of the issues we believe will be key to keeping global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees. Topics will include, AI applications for soil carbon sequestration, energy equity, water equity, and electrified transportation infrastructure. Next up are our recommendations for federal EV charging infrastructure spending.
We need energy data to combat climate change, and we need a data utility to make that happen.
Heading into COP26, how can leaders ensure energy data meets its full climate potential? Our experience with energy data has led us to the answer: support the development of a data utility staffed with data scientists, computers scientists, cybersecurity experts and domain experts that would prioritize customer privacy and protection, limit profiteering, require transparency, and advance the integration of data and computer science into our nation’s grid system.
Federal Clean Energy Stimulus Can Make or Break U.S. Clean Power Goals
There is no silver bullet in the fight to address climate change – we must consider all the tools at our disposal. Extending clean energy tax credits and passing a federal CES put us on the path to achieving our goal of 100 percent clean power by 2035. In concert, these policies would result in the most ambitious approach to reaching 100 percent clean power. However, without legislation enacting a CES, extending the PTC and ITC are still meaningful policies that would result in more clean energy deployment, better health and equity outcomes, and increased job growth and economic activity.
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.
Addressing an Electrification Roadblock: Residential Electric Panel Capacity
Pecan Street’s new analysis explores the opportunities for policymakers and utilities to remove a significant barrier to residential electrification. By incentivizing electric service panel upgrades for existing homes and requiring larger capacity panels for new construction, we can clear the path for full residential electrification.
Equitable Infrastructure Will Take Time and Commitment
Making President Biden's infrastructure commitments translate to lasting economic and social change for communities of color, however, will require deliberate and long-term strategies.
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.
Earth Day 2021: Is it just us, or does something feel different?
After more than 50 years of celebrating Earth Day, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s taken far too long for the simple concept of valuing our planet to go mainstream. It has taken too long. Climate scientists have been telling us for decades the clock is ticking while the world gets its act together.