The Pathway to VPPs: Commercial Liftoff
This article was originally posted by the US Gov Department of Energy as part of the Pathways to Commercial Liftoff reports, started in 2022.
Deploying 80-160 GW of virtual power plants (VPPs) by 2030 could expand the US grid’s capacity to reliably support rapid electrification while redirecting grid spending from peaker plants to participants and reducing overall grid costs.
Between 2023 and 2030, coincident peak demand on the grid will rise ~60 GW, from roughly 740 GW to 800 GW of demand. At the same time, fossil assets are retiring. Roughly 200 GW of peak-coincident demand must be served with new resources coming online by 2030. Tripling the current scale of VPPs could address 10-20% of this peak demand. This could avoid ~$10B in annual grid costs, and much of the money that is spent on VPPs would flow back to participating consumers.
