With the addition of energy storage, solar-enabled ratepayers can power their way through an emergency individually with clean kilowatts, and they can also lend a hand collectively by enrolling in a virtual power plant.

A Utah storage company is on the cutting edge of utilizing distributed energy to strengthen the power grid, and today they’re taking another step forward.

Virtual power plants have emerged as one of the leading solutions to decarbonizing the grid and meeting explosive demand for electricity. While they offer many potential benefits, not everyone is sold on the technology being the best path forward.

US solar power company Sunrun has announced it will expand its support for the energy grid in Texas in partnership with Tesla Electric, a subsidiary of Tesla.

CPower CEO Michael Smith joined the Factor This! podcast to break down the technology behind VPPs, where the industry stands today, and the critical markets no one is looking at.

California is home to the nation's largest virtual power plant, and it will likely play a critical role in supporting the state's electric grid during the hot summer months. 

Texas is uniquely suited to adopt virtual power plant (VPP) technology due to its competitive, deregulated market. Its success highlights the “perverse incentive” of vertically integrated utilities in other US states to make capital expenditures without discretion to raise profits.

GM Energy, a new business unit of General Motors, focuses on offering batteries, EV chargers, and software to residential and commercial customers. The company has recently introduced the Ultium Home product suite, which includes energy storage, solar panels, and bi-directional charging equipment. These products enable vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities, allowing electric vehicles to power homes during blackouts or to provide energy back to the grid. GM Energy aims to expand its energy management services to mitigate the effects of power outages and provide cost-effective energy solutions for customers.

In this episode, Shayle talks to Jigar Shah, director of the Loans Programs Office at the U.S. Department of Energy. Jigar argues that the rooftop solar industry should reinvent itself, relying on batteries and virtual power plants (VPPs). He also argues that regulations should focus on system-level dispatchability. 

The DRIVE Act would require utilities to support vehicle-to-grid technology in a distributed energy resource portfolio amid efforts to shore up the congested PJM Interconnection.

PG&E, Kaluza and Wallbox are partnering on an EV and V2X programme in California, which will use dynamic tariffs to reward customers for providing surplus power back to the grid during public safety power shutoff events.

This report, New Resource Adequacy Criteria for the Energy Transition: Modernizing Reliability Requirements, outlines the need for, and a path toward, the use of a multi-metric criteria approach in resource adequacy analysis.

How utilities and their customers are already benefitting from VPPs and insights for future implementation.

CNBC's Pippa Stevens joins 'Squawk Box' to report on virtual power plant and more.

Opportunities, risks and the changing growth profile of distributed energy resources in the US.

Virtual power plants (VPPs) coordinate distributed resources and demand for a more resilient, cost-effective energy transition. And they are gaining traction in the United States.

A new study prepared for Google by energy analysts from The Brattle Group explores the cost and ability to serve critical resource adequacy needs from an emerging resource: virtual power plants (VPPs). These distributed energy resource (DER) portfolios – which can include technologies such as rooftop solar, smart thermostats, smart water heaters, electric vehicles, and distributed batteries – are actively controlled by utilities and energy service providers to benefit consumers, the power system, and the environment.

Virtual power plants are already helping prevent power outages, but they lack a structured environment. A new coalition aims to change that.

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.

Energy Conference covers new green energy program with HECO.