Precourt Energy Efficiency Center

1 September 2012 | centers
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http://peec.stanford.edu/

Originally named the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency (PIEE), PEEC was founded in October 2006 at Stanford University by a generous gift from Stanford Alumnus Jay Precourt.

As a Stanford University research institute, PEEC draws upon intellectual resources from the entire university. At the core of the Precourt Center is an increasing number of faculty-led research teams including graduate and undergraduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Research teams include researchers and analysts from across the university, bringing expertise from many different disciplines.

What is the Precourt Center’s mission?

The mission of the Precourt Center is to promote energy efficient technologies, systems, and practices, emphasizing economically attractive deployment. PEEC works to understand and overcome market, policy, technology, and human behavioral barriers to economically efficient reductions of energy use and to inform public and private policymaking. Energy Efficiency is vital for the U.S. and world economy, for environmental protection, and for energy security.

How will PEEC do this?

  • Education
  • Through the funding of graduate students either as research assistants or to support their dissertation research, PEEC is facilitating the education of graduate students who choose to work within energy efficiency.
  • Research

PEEC has six focus areas of energy efficiency research that we believe will help create workable options to promote energy efficiency. These clusters are:

  1. Buildings: commercial and residential building design, construction, operations, and embedded technologies, including building energy models and other design tools
  2. Transportation: technology and regulation of passenger cars and light duty trucks; transportation systems analysis; vehicle electrification
  3. Systems: systems analysis; electric generation/distribution systems, storage/distribution options, vehicle/building interactions
  4. Behavior: behavioral and decision making research, analysis, and intervention
  5. Energy Modeling: economic modeling of the energy system, institutions, and economic impacts, including process modeling of energy use
  6. Energy Policy: policy design, policy analysis, individual faculty advocacy; pricing policies, policy interventions, R&D; policy

Conferences and Workshops

  • PEEC convenes the annual Behavior, Energy, & Climate Change Conference, jointly with the California Institute for Energy and Environment and ACEEE
  • The annual Energy Summit jointly with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group
  • An annual affiliates conference jointly with the Woods Institute for the Environment
  • Various workshops. These help assure that energy research is communicated broadly and that PEEC remains closely linked with industry, government, NGOs, and other research organizations.