POWER GRIDSooner Than You Might Think: Virtual Power Plants Are Coming to Save the Grid
Networks of thousands of home-based batteries could be key to a cleaner, more reliable electricity system. After years of pilot projects, utilities and battery companies now have networks with thousands of participants in California, Utah, and Vermont, among others.
After years of pilot projects, utilities and battery companies now have networks with thousands of participants in California, Utah, and Vermont, among others.
The batteries in virtual power plants add megawatts of capacity to the grid when electricity demand is at its highest. And most of the electricity from the batteries is generated by rooftop solar.
This combination of renewable energy and groups of batteries is “a recipe for the grid of the future,” said Blake Richetta, CEO of U.S. operations for the battery maker sonnen.
Yes, sonnen has a lowercase “s,” the kind of frustrating—at least for copy editors—branding that seems appropriate for virtual power plants, a concept whose name does little to explain what it is.
So what is it? A virtual power plant is like a swarm of bees or the Power Rangers’ Megazord or any other group of parts that join forces to do big things, which in this case means stabilizing the grid.
I’ve been following sonnen for a while and in 2019 had a tour of its global headquarters in Wildpoldsried, a village in Germany. The resulting story had a lot about Wildpoldsried and made only a brief mention of sonnen. But the company made an impression on me because of its entrepreneurial nature and its vision of how batteries can reduce the need for conventional power plants.
Since its founding in 2010, the company has been a leader in emphasizing how batteries can serve a larger function than just backup power, and it has developed software to manage groups of batteries. The company is among the market leaders in home-based energy storage in Europe but is a smaller player in the United States. Its rivals include Tesla and LG Chem.
Last week, I spoke with Richetta to get his view of a moment in which sonnen is part of several major initiatives that are helping to popularize virtual power plants.
The purpose of a home-based battery shouldn’t be to just “sit there all year until there’s a power outage,” Richetta said. Instead, that battery can be a building block for serving the entire grid.
Here are some specifics on how this idea translates into action:
Rocky Mountain Power, the utility serving parts of Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, is working with sonnen on a virtual power plant in which the utility provides a rebate to encourage customers to participate.
