Austin's Pecan Street Project has won $10.4 million in federal stimulus money to create a smartgrid demonstration project at the Mueller development in East Austin.

On Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced $620 million in cleanenergy grants for 32 demonstration projects nationwide.

Chu said the projects chosen — which include largescale energy storage, smart meters, transmission system monitoring devices and a range of other smart technologies — will serve as models for the deployment of smartgrid systems on a broader scale.

In Austin, the money will help turn Mueller — the city's former airport, now a 700acre community of homes, stores and businesses — into a smartgrid model community.

The Pecan Street Project is a cleanenergy collaboration between Austin Energy, a number of hightech companies, the University of Texas and other entities.

At a time when many cities and utilities are competing to become clean energy leaders, this award gives us a significant jumpstart, said Brewster McCracken, federal grants manager with the Pecan Street Project.

We intend to make the Mueller neighborhood an example of what modern neighborhoods can accomplish with smarter energy management, cleanenergy generation and advanced system integration, he said.

Details of the funding will be negotiated in coming weeks, McCracken said.

The proposal includes:

• four University of Texas research teams to design, test and analyze the system;
• four solar arrays deployed on commercial rooftops at Mueller.
• energy storage integrated with the grid at four sites within Mueller;
• smart appliances, most likely deployed in apartments;
• 10 electric vehicles, owned by Austin Energy and used by the research team for testing;
• 200 inhome smart grid water systems and 200 residential smart grid sprinkler systems.

This is a giant step forward for Austin, Mayor Lee Leffingwell said. Austin is known for pioneering smartgrid technology, so it is especially fitting that the pioneers of Mueller have joined this effort.

Two other Texas projects won funding:

• The Center for Commercialization of Electric Technologies received $13.5 million to manage fluctuations in wind power in a large transmission grid based in Houston.
• Dallasbased regulated power line company Oncor won $3.5 million for a smartgrid project that will allow the company to determine how much electricity is moving on a line at a given time.