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Black History Month Blog Series Recap
Due to the winter storm and energy crisis in late February, we postponed our Black History Month blog series. We’re excited to be concluding the series now with a round-up of all our Black History Month blogs highlighting leading Black voices on climate, equity, and clean energy issues. Below you can read an expert from […]
Pecan Street Convenes Artificial Intelligence Working Group to Advance Soil Carbon Sequestration on Farms
Pecan Street Inc. and The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) have launched a globally unique AI for Soil Carbon Sequestration Working Group to explore new methods for using artificial intelligence (AI) to overcome the barriers to widespread adoption of climate- beneficial farming practices.
Pecan Street Seeks Database Administrator
Pecan Street Inc. seeks a Database Administrator to be part of its award-winning team accelerating innovations for climate and conservation solutions. The selected candidate will be part of a passionate, dynamic team that works on a range of exciting programs in partnership with public and private entities. The selected candidate will work with the nation’s […]
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.
ZDNet: How autonomous vehicles will change car ownership
Pecan Street in Austin ran an eight-month pilot project in three neighborhoods, where residents could hail the shuttle with a text, phone call, or via the app. They could be picked up anywhere in the service area and go to any destination within the service area.
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.
Data: The Fifth Utility?
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street – The data challenge extends far beyond Amazon, Google and Facebook. Data is everywhere. In our work at Pecan Street, conversations about distributed energy are often conversations about data.
Diving deeper into power factor
By Scott Hinson, chief technology officer, Pecan Street Residential solar inverters typically only provide real power to the electrical grid. When they do that, the reactive power component (either the displacement or distortion current) isn’t affected. It stays on the grid. The real power draw of the house is minimized or even completely canceled. This means that the utility has to deal with the portions of the load – called reactive power – that reduce power factor.