Community and Small-Scale Grid Innovation - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 181

Austin Energy is directly responsible to the Austin City Council, and is highly motivated to
be responsive to citizen concerns. It boasts that its “GreenChoice® program is the nation's
most successful utility-sponsored and voluntary green-pricing energy program” (Austin
Energy 2014 ) . Austin Energy is the eighth-largest publicly owned utility in the U.S., and
provides electrical power to approximately 450,000 customers across approximately 450
square miles in central Texas. As a department within the city, it returns profits to help fund
other services ranging from police to libraries (Austin Energy 2014 ).
The Pecan Street Demonstration Project began in 2008 as an effort to exploit the
historical connections between Texas and the energy industry, as well as the emerging IT
capabilities and environmental consciousness of Austin (Pecan Street Inc. 2013d ). Texans
view Austin as the state's progressive and liberal city (Feldpausch-Parker et al. 2009 ) .
Austin has one of the oldest Green Builder programs in the United States and supports
a suite of Smart Growth policies, which include a number of environmentally friendly
incentives and initiatives for energy and water conservation.
With its demonstrated commitment to climate change mitigation, Austin symbolizes the
expansion of the Texas identity from the leading U.S. oil -producing state to the leading
U.S. energy -producing state. Austinites pride themselves on their outstanding performance
as participants in national and international energy programs that are influencing the future
of energy production, transmission, delivery, and use. Along with its progressive persona,
Austin continues to exude the frontier spirit of adventure, expansion, independence, and
limitless possibility that makes up the Texas mythology. Besides being the Texas state
capital, it is the home of the University of Texas, Dell Computers, Whole Foods, and Willie
Nelson (Feldpausch-Parker et al. 2009 ) .
In 2008, the City of Austin (including, but not limited to, Austin Energy) began
discussions with the University of Texas, the Austin Technology Incubator, and Austin's
Chamber of Commerce. By the end of the year, it had begun recruiting corporate partners
(Pecan Street Inc. 2013a ). In 2009 an expanded group began researching possible projects
and formed the Pecan Street Project Inc. as a nonprofit organization to coordinate their
efforts. The new organization applied for Department of Energy funding for a smart grid
demonstration project; it was awarded $10.4 million. Planning for implementation and
continued recruitment of corporate partners occupied most of 2010, and implementation
began in 2011. The word “project” was dropped from the organization's name as it
expanded beyond the original vision of a single smart grid demonstration project in Austin
(Pecan Street Inc. 2013b ) . Pecan Street Inc. has split into two segments, with one focused
on smart grid research and the other on commercialization of smart grid technologies
(PecanStreetInc. 2013b ).In2014theresearchinstitutelaunchedWikiEnergy,whichoffers
“the world's largest research database of customer energy and water use” (Pecan Street