Energy
Pecan Street Awarded $7.9 Million to Develop Solar Congestion Solution, Improve Solar Access for LMI Customers
The U.S. Department of Energy has granted a five-year, $7.9 million Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program (GRIP) grant to Pecan Street Inc. and its partners to develop and deploy technology that will allow utilities to manage solar supply and energy demand throughout the grid.
Pecan Street Inc. and Local Partners to Expand Novel Energy Equity Research Network to Oklahoma, Georgia, Oregon and Pennsylvania
A 3-year, $2.5 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to Pecan Street Inc. and university and local community partners will expand Pecan Street’s household energy research network to four new regions.
Energy Research Organization Testing New Waters
Pecan Street uses a smart-grid system, an electricity supply network that uses newly developed technologies, to detect and communicate changes in the use of electricity, gas and, most recently, water. Pecan Street provides researchers and organizations energy use data to manage electricity demand and encourage sustainable practices.
GreenTech Podcast: This Data on How Consumers Use Energy May Surprise You
In this week’s podcast, we’ll talk with Brewster McCracken, the CEO of Pecan Street Inc., about the organization’s analysis of consumer energy use, utility efficiency programs and electric vehicle charging.
AC = 2/3 of home summer electric use
Homeowners and utilities in areas with hot summers already knew air conditioning was the dominant electric use between June and August. The latest quarterly research report from the research site WikiEnergy puts a number on just how much of that home electric use comes from air conditioning.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visits Austin, with praise
As part of a trip to promote President Barack Obama’s energy strategy, Moniz chatted with local clean energy companies and leaders, including clean technology startups from the Austin Technology Incubator and the cleantech cluster development group CleanTX. He also toured the Pike Powers Laboratory and Center for Commercialization, a testing bed and commercialization facility near the UT campus.
EVs and the Grid are A-OK
In a study of vehicle charging in a neighborhood with one of the highest residential concentrations of electric cars in the country, researchers found that owners are charging their EVs much less during hot summer afternoons than most behavioral models predicted.