Austin, Texas will soon experience the joy of Xcel Energy in their Pecan Street project. The Pecan Street Project is a prototype smart grid being built through a joint collaboration in Austin. The catch is that Austin Energy is associated with Xcel energy. This is the same company that is socking it to the citizens of Boulder to recoup the costs of setting up a smart grid in that city. Xcel is charging all the people in the state of Colorado for Boulder’s smart grid (real smart, eh?). Will the same thinking happen here in Texas? When you have the same players, doing the same thing (building a smart grid), can you expect anything less than the same outcome? Austin Energy and Xcel energy now charge ‘green’ customers more for energy than conventional customers. Heck, the same person who spearheaded the Boulder grid (Michael Carlson) is now on board with Gridpoint which is working with Austin Energy at the Pecan Street project. Once they have a centrally controlled grid, will the situation change? When past behavior is the best indicator of future behaviours, then Austinites had better get ready to pay more.

If Austin wants to do its own thing, let them do it. Just don’t expect all the people in Texas to pay for their things, like the people in Colorado are having to do for the Boulder smart grid. The smart grid amounts to nothing more than bringing central planning to utilities, which we do not need.

Liberty for Texas and the South!

J Murrah

Austin Power, Boulder, Economic Independence, Gridpoint, Michael Carlson, Pecan Street Project., smartgrid, Xcel Energy

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