12 May Pecan Street Project opens participation to 900 more Central Austin homes

You may have heard about Pecan Street Project over the last year or so.  It is a non-profit smart grid organization headquartered at UT, and they are in the midst of a smart grid demonstration project at the Mueller community.  They are a stand-alone organization, but they work closely (and have board members from) Austin Energy, the City, UT-Austin, the Chamber of Commerce and Environmental Defense Fund.  Their executive director is former City Council member Brewster McCracken.

They’ve reached out to Austin EcoNetwork to let us know that they are expanding the “geography” of their project and are looking for homeowners in neigborhoods outside Mueller to participate in their research.

You can read about the organization in the press here, or visit pecanstreetproject.org.  They have a new video that shows many of the residents that are participating and explains what kind of research they are undertaking.

But here’s the gist:  Their goal is to find out how different types of technology, appliances and information tools impact people's energy use.  That includes how much energy is used and when it is used.  This is the first research project of its kind in the US – one that includes real, paying customers in real, actual homes.  The more we know about energy usage, the better utilities can plan, the quicker efficient products can be developed and the faster we can ramp down the amount of carbon-based fuel we use to generate our electricity.

They are in the middle of their “baseline” phase – 100 homes in Mueller are having their energy usage monitored to help give researchers a “before” picture of usage trends.  This fall, the number of homes will grow to 1,000, and Pecan Street Project will install new technology, train homeowners how to use it, and then monitor for a year how these products and services impact usage

If your neighborhood group (or church, or business) is not tooooo far from Meuller and would like to learn more about the study, Pecan Street Project is conducting neighborhood briefings.  You can email them at participate@pecanstreetproject.org, and let them know you’d like them to come to your meeting.

They have a short post on their site that explains the research project and the installation that is required at each volunteer home (this explains the baseline installation process, but next year’s phase will be similar.)