Brian Kebbekus
kebbe913@gmail.com
City of Austin
 Austin Energy
 The University of Texas
 Austin Technology Incubator
 Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
 Environmental Defense Fund
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Why Austin?
Limited Federal Regulation and Local Support
Grid Isolation
Lack of Federal Regulation Speeds Project
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University of Texas
GreenChoice
Panhandle wind
Solar
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Dell
IBM
Oracle
Cisco
Microsoft
Applied Materials
GE Energy
Intel
Sematech
Silicon Wafers
Austin Energy’s Goals
More Than Just Usage Control
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A new 30MW solar plant
Data network
1M residential smart meters
43K business smart meters
86K smart thermostats (90MW)
2 net-zero consumption neighborhoods
Rebates and financing for distributed solar
Austin is still making money
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Decrease carbon emissions by 17-20% by
2020
Increase renewable energy generation to
30-36% of total capacity
Increased efficiency
Easier usage monitoring for consumers
New business model
Pecan Street Project Workgroups
City as Laboratory
Mueller: Proof of Concept
A Comprehensive First Step
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Distributed Clean Energy
Smart grid coupled with water systems
Smart Appliances
Plug-in electric vehicles as storage (V2G)
Green building codes
Experimental pricing models
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Storage vs. load
shaping
Private vs. effective
Identify nonsensitive appliances
Public education
Strong privacy
policy
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Not dependent on
other technologies
Enormous energy
savings
Excellent pilot program
for other cities, if not
other utilities
Austin is in a unique
position
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More smart appliances necessary
Expanded storage
User interface optimization
More distributed generation
◦ Incentives for add-on
◦ Zoning requirements for new homes
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Water management
Expanding Energy Storage
Vehicle to Grid
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Smart grid allows for:
◦ Demand shaping
◦ Lower overall usage
◦ Increased reliance on renewable energy
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Cleaner energy, not less energy is the End
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The most important project for Austin Energy
The current business model promotes
consumption
Consumers are bad at delayed gratification
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Flat rate
Customers allow
Austin to turn off
major appliances as
necessary
Customers open up
their land to
distributed generation
Peak-time penalties
Internet-Style Pricing
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A fallback position
Multiple ways of
notifying customers
New methods of
generating revenue
Real-Time Pricing
“The demise of the ‘spinning meter’ business
model is inevitable. Everyone knows it’s
coming, and most people now think it’s coming
pretty quickly. What has not emerged yet is its
replacement. And until we know where the
revenue streams will flow from and to, it doesn’t
really matter what brilliant technical plan we
come up with. The business model is the
linchpin.”