Full Title: Virtual Power Plant Flipbook: How Utilities and their Customers are Already Benefitting from VPPs and Insights for Future Implementation
Author(s): Mary Tobin and Kevin Brehm
Publisher(s): RMI
Publication Date: June 12, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Virtual power plants (VPPs) — grid-integrated aggregations of distributed energy resources such as batteries, electric vehicles, smart thermostats, and other connected devices — can help balance electrical loads and provide several grid and community benefits, such as supplying critical grid services (including capacity, energy, ancillary services, and resilience), alleviating stressed transmission and distribution systems, and integrating more renewables for a cleaner energy supply.
Utilities and their regulators are increasingly turning toward VPPs as a key tool, alongside traditional infrastructure investment, to ensure safe, reliable, resilient, and affordable power in the face of near-term challenges created by load growth, extreme weather, and retirement of thermal generators.
VPP design and implementation involves six main steps for utilities. Developing a VPP begins with asking questions to understand current utility needs and identifying how available resources can be leveraged as a resource. From there, a program can be continuously iterated upon over time to incorporate learnings and meet evolving grid needs.