Residential heat pump installations are poised to rapidly accelerate over the next decade as part of the effort to electrify homes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As of 2020, only 14% of America’s 124 million housing units used heat pumps for space heating. To help households make sense of this technology and understand system […]
Cooling a Warming Planet: What Homes in Texas and New York Can Teach Us About Cooling Demand Around the Globe
Pecan Street draws on our network of volunteer research participants to examine cooling loads in different parts of the United States. Our data show that cooling loads differ based on location, building characteristics, cooling systems, and human behavior. Understanding how these factors interact will be crucial to managing cooling load growth over the next […]
Untapped in Texas: How Solar, EVs and Demand Response Could Fortify the Grid
Texans will never forget February 2021. Winter Storm Uri crippled the state’s natural gas supply and sparked a cascading failure of our electricity system. More than 4 million homes and businesses lost power, many of them for days. More than 700 people died. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated the electricity crisis cost […]
Understanding Energy Data Privacy and Behavior
Authored by Dr. Vedran Lesic for Pecan Street Inc. This report seeks to gain understanding of individuals’ perceptions of how high-resolution energy data contributes to the formation of their identity and an understanding of household perspectives on the importance of protecting the privacy of energy data. The report explores the rapidly evolving landscape of how […]
Behind The Meter Storage and 4CP in Texas
This paper summarizes the benefits of behind-the-meter (BTM) assets that can decrease a utility’s net transmission cost through 4 Coincident Peaks (4CP) reduction. The report highlights the lessons learned for the management and control of residential energy storage systems (ESSs). The data shown here is extracted directly from assets installed by Pecan Street Inc. in […]