Transitioning To A Smarter Grid: Virtual Power Plants
This article was originally published by Forbes on 25th March 2021.This article is one in a series investigating the importance of modernizing and decarbonizing the electric grid.
If you want to understand the issue in context, see the article Grid Modernization; for cutting edge experts’ take on the topic, see the article Here Is How To Create A Clean, Resilient Electrical Grid. In the latter article, I touch on the topic of the present article, Virtual Power Plants (VPPs).
For a look at an innovative company spun out of Stanford University’s labs that have developed a battery with tremendous potential for providing grid storage, see the article, Enervenue: The Batteries We Need for Grid-Scale Storage. For a look at a company using superconductor technology to make our current, aging grid more resilient, please see Transitioning to a Smarter Grid: AMSC.
When I say the word “Power Plant”, what do you think of? Most likely, images of massive industrial installations, huge smokestacks, and high voltage wires come into mind.
This is what I thought too before I heard about Virtual Power Plants – VPPs.
VPPs pair inexpensive equipment installed at electrical customers’ homes and businesses with some very smart networking software to take over many of the functions that multi-billion-dollar natural gas, coal-fired, or nuclear plants did in the last century.
While VPPs are a new concept and have yet to be widely rolled out in all areas, I believe they have the potential to change our system of electrical generation and provision as much as Linux and open source have changed the software business.
This article offers an overview of three pioneering VPP companies:
sonnen
Swell
OhmConnect
