Virtual Power Plants Can Support the Grid

There are so many ways to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and waste, and they are all personal choices, from the choice of an electric vehicle over a gasoline one to composting versus throwing food waste into the garbage. These choices all make a difference and what is more the power of choice increases exponentially as more people make sustainable choices in their lives.

Let me give you an example, when multiple households within a community choose solar and energy storage at their residences they can band together through an aggregator and form a virtual powerplant. This virtual powerplant enables them to support the utility grid during times of high stress, for example hot summer days when there is a lot of air conditioning load, by sending electricity from their solar and energy storage systems back to the grid to prevent blackouts. Additionally, they can band together and participate in utility demand response programs and generate some revenue for themselves that way.

As you can see, there is strength in numbers, and the more participants there are in a virtual powerplant the stronger it is and the more programs it can participate in. For example, large virtual power plants that are greater than 100 kW in size may even be able to participate in ancillary services markets that are managed by the regional transmission operator, such as the CAISO in California. These are additional services that provide grid support such as frequency regulation, voltage regulation, spinning reserve and non-spinning reserve.

Virtual power plants are becoming easier to participate in. For example, if you own a Tesla energy storage system the Tesla app allows you to participate in a virtual power plant that is managed by Tesla. Effectively, Tesla is the aggregator in this case.

As you can see virtual power plants are one way where we can leverage our strength in numbers to reduce greenhouse gases, support the grid and make some additional revenue.