Press Releases, News & Technical Documents
Annual report and year end review.
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street The past year was one of successes, reflection and transition at Pecan Street, and we’re proud to share with you how we’ve continued — and expanded — the organization’s commitment to world-class energy and water research. You can download the entire Annual Report here.
Finding invisible water (and money) leaks with Pecan Street’s tech
By Rachel Jenkins, director of operations, Pecan Street Most water customers – residents and businesses alike – know how much water they used last month. But they don’t know what used that water, or when. Pecan Street’s equipment lets users see water use minute-by-minute, in near-real time.
Live from Texas, it is “Vehicle-to-Grid”!
By Andrea Tosi, power systems specialist, Pecan Street We hit an important energy milestone recently with the installation of an electric vehicle (EV) charger that can charge from and discharge to the grid – a bidirectional flow of energy known as Vehicle-to-Grid, or V2G. For the first time in Austin, and possibly in Texas, energy was transferred from an electric vehicle’s battery pack to the electric grid’s distribution feeder.
Pecan Street ready to help achieve Austin’s One Water Commitment
By Fisayo Fadelu, CFO and general counsel, Pecan Street This summer, Pecan Street joined a City of Austin delegation in the Twin Cities at the One Water Summit, a national conference focused on water management and planning.
Power factor – a little known feature of a reliable grid
By Scott Hinson, chief technology officer, Pecan Street Power factor is a measurement distribution engineers use to figure out how difficult it is to provide power to whatever we plug in. Every device that pulls electricity from the grid, from a small phone charger to large industrial loads, has a power factor that can be measured. Exactly what is power factor (or PF)? The easiest way to understand it is to see it.
Big data, anyone? Pecan Street hits petabyte territory.
By Grant Fisher, chief information officer, Pecan Street We can say we collect 10 million records per-day, per-house. Or, we can say the database is many terabytes large. Or that we have the world’s largest collection of energy, water, and gas data for use by academic researchers. However, it isn’t until recently that I think Pecan Street has crossed into the “Big Data” realm.
A drone (and photographer) visits Pecan Street research families
By Rachel Jenkins, director of operations, Pecan Street Thanks to our friends at Environmental Defense Fund, we spent some time last week shooting new photos of two research families and flying a drone to get some cool footage of all the solar panels around the Mueller neighborhood. Look at all those solar panels!
Pecan Street’s high-resolution data is unlocking grid mysteries
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street Clean electricity is booming. Last year in California, solar power plants generated nearly 12% of the state’s total electricity production and distributed solar likely produced another 5%. Texas got 18% of its electricity from wind and solar. In many markets, unsubsidized clean energy costs the same or less than conventional fossil-fuel powered plants. And the cost of clean, renewable electricity continues to fall.
Better late than never, right?
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street You know those friends you haven’t seen in a while…the ones that you KNOW have been busy trying to change the world, but haven’t bothered blogging about it? That’s us.