Virtual Power Plants Go Global
This report was originally published by Navigant Research in Q2 2019.
A Commercial Pathway for Moving from VPP to DERMS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1.1 Virtual Power Plants Go Global
Virtual Power Plants Go Global As distributed energy resources (DER) continue to proliferate, so do the reliability challenges associated with smaller, diverse, and dispersed assets now populating the world’s aging grid infrastructure. In the past, one of the chief concerns of utilities and grid operators was managing the intermittency of wholesale renewable energy sources, such as wind. Today, the diversity of resources being added to the power grid now include EVs—with mobile loads equivalent to a home—and rooftop solar PV coupled with energy storage devices at residences. As the aging grid infrastructure was not designed for two way power flows, these recent trends create new challenges—as well as opportunities. A transformation is needed. As the platforms required to manage a more DER-dominated grid emerge, virtual power plants (VPPs) provide the necessary software to deal with these challenges and keep electric grids in a state of constant, delicate, and reliable balance.
