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 […]
Using Big Data to Maximize Microgrid Performance
The concept of microgrids is simple. Designing a microgrid to meet a variety of potential goals and to deliver power during emergencies is more complicated. Based on Pecan Street’s analysis of the high-resolution data from our research network, this paper examines how high-frequency circuit-level electricity data produced by Pecan Street’s residential energy network can help […]
Lessons from Pecan Street’s Electric Last Mile Project
Conducted in partnership with Austin’s Capital Metro transit agency, Pecan Street’s Electric Last Mile (ELM) project sought to understand the environmental benefits of using small, electric shuttles for first-mile, last-mile, and local transit connections. Through the deployment of three pilot projects around Austin, Texas over a 24-month period, the project evaluated a variety of operational […]
Distributed Energy Toolkit for Historically Black Colleges & Universities
Microgrids powered by clean, distributed energy resources (DERs) that supply continuous power during grid outages, can increase grid resiliency and security, and provide economic and environmental benefits to HBCUs by allowing participation in utility savings programs that reduce overall energy use and dependence on fossil fuel energy resources. Pecan Street developed this toolkit to […]
Sparking EV America: Turning President Biden’s EV Charging Agenda into a Generational Transformation of American Transportation
President Biden’s focus on charging infrastructure is a historic confluence of environmental, climate, economic and infrastructure policy. The funding that could come with it could not only speed up customer adoption of electric vehicles, but provide a more strategic, efficient, and equitable investment in charging infrastructure than private companies have provided so far. This […]
