Pecan Street and CIC launched a strategic partnership to develop frameworks and projects for resource optimization and energy efficiency with a focus on grid modernization headquartered in Austin, TX

Grid Modernization is a critical next step in the world’s energy transition.  To accelerate this transition, CIC and Pecan Street Inc signed a strategic partnership in February 2020 to focus on shared learning, collaboration and prioritization of new products and services as we move towards a modern grid and utility model.  Our partnership embraces grid resiliency projects to accommodate rapid technological changes in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power.  We also take a systematic approach to assessing the impacts of climate change on grid infrastructure and resource utilization.

Grid Modernization can be viewed as a cost that needs to be incorporated to mitigate negative impacts to grid infrastructure, reliability, and capacity. Climate Impact Capital (CIC) views risks associated with climate change and Grid Modernization as an opportunity to accelerate the energy transition, reduce long-term costs, and improve the environment. Climate change risk and identifying new impact investing opportunities represent the world’s greatest opportunities towards resource optimization.  And with increasing needs for cooling, fresh water, and food, it is vital to identify holistic solutions that will grow the economy, improve people’s lives, and protect our natural resources as we move towards a sustainable global economy.

The Pecan Street and CIC partnership builds upon the PLATFORM program that Pecan Street recently completed in partnership with the Department of Energy, which tested over a dozen technologies to help reduce the perceived investment risk by early customers and investors.

“The ability for utilities to leverage technology and IOT innovations for more efficient energy management and decarbonization of our electric system is hampered by lack of funding for start-ups with promising innovations,” said Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street. “Pecan Street is excited to work with Climate Impact Capital on innovative financial models that de-risk investments in cleantech through independent technology performance testing, market validation, and trusted environmental impact analysis.”

As Climate Impact Capital launches its energy transition focus on new product and service innovations, Pecan Street will apply its unique capabilities to support the startups within CIC’s value proposition. “Our mission is to identify, prioritize, and invest alongside our partners into technology opportunities that enable the low carbon energy transition and the smart, distributed, and renewable power grid,” said Alex Rozenfeld, CIC Founder and Managing Director “…and together we have a mission to integrate and rapidly deploy solutions across multiple stakeholders.”

More on Pecan Street:

Pecan Street is uniquely accelerating solutions for climate resilience and drought mitigation by providing technology companies and university researchers with access to the world’s best data on consumer energy and water consumption behavior, testing and verification of technology solutions, and commercialization services to help bring breakthrough ideas to market faster and guide policy decisions.

Pecan Street’s lab is a green-built facility where companies of all sizes can develop, test and validate a wide range of products and services. The lab also houses Pecan Street’s secure data center, which powers Dataport – Pecan Street’s interactive web portal to access, visualize, analyze and discuss the organization’s unique data.

Our real-world testbed of volunteer research participants is the first of its kind on the planet and has become an international model for how to develop and conduct energy and resource research and product testing. It comprises of over 1,000 homes from across the United States, which collectively send over 750M datapoints per day to Pecan Street’s data center.  That data is then used by over 2,000 academic and policy researchers in over 60 countries.

Our commercialization lab is an affordable, world-class proving ground for major corporations and startups alike. And our database, the largest source of disaggregated customer energy data, is used by university researchers and industry-leading companies around the world.

Headquartered in Austin, Pecan Street Inc. is a 501(c)(3) research and development organization.

More on Climate Impact Capital:

Climate Impact Capital (CIC) invests in technology companies and supports our partners to target today’s relevant issues in energy and climate change. At our core, CIC creates resilience options and prepares our partners, customers and portfolio companies for a world challenged by climate variability and resource scarcity.

In investments, this is specifically to maximize alpha, based on analysis of complex and long-term (climate) issues with high variance potential. In strategy, we seek to help leadership teams identify business critical risks and find opportunities within climate change impacted systems.

The global energy and electrical infrastructure transition represent an immediate opportunity and current innovation focus. CIC’s mission-oriented approach to sustainable investing covers five sectors over time: (1) Energy and Power, (2) Agriculture and Water, (3) Transport and Logistics, (4) Manufacturing and Materials, and the (5) Carbon Cycle. The first two sectors encompass the Energy-Water-Food Nexus, which is our core focus.

We hope and expect that our insights on mitigation and adaptation, alongside our investments, will provide significant solutions and pathways for our partners and allow society to transition quickly to a low carbon economy.