I came across a similar “hack” on LinkedIn from Tom Styer:
“California just pulled off the nation’s largest-ever test of a virtual power plant. This successful test proved VPPs are a fast, low-cost, zero-emissions way to make better use of the clean energy we already have — and to keep the lights on as demand surges from data centers, heat waves, and electrification.”
Basically, they are talking about allowing residential batteries supply the grid during peak demand. I tend to be skeptical about stuff like this because in my own domain, water, there’s a lot of pop science and bold claims that ignore scaling and logistics. I asked a smart fellow in that industry about it https://substack.com/@energycrystals and I thought he gave a good answer that aligns with my experience with water, which is it always come down to implementation: ”The challenge is lining up customer telemetry to incentive structures that matter. With standard demand response products (which some people sell as VPPs), the incentives given to customers don’t pay for the battery and the software admin and API costs to the utilities outweigh the cost savings of a VPPVPPs are vaporware until someone can make the business model pencil and the API integration and UX not suck ass”
So, without knowing more, my prior is that this free capacity is there for a reason, and that utilities aren’t that dumb. On the flip side, I think it’s great that we are thinking this way. Probing our systems and looking for efficiencies are worthwhile. our legacy infrastructure is a mess of path dependent bureaucracy and I’m certain there’s gains to be made in addition to new construction.
I came across a similar “hack” on LinkedIn from Tom Styer:
“California just pulled off the nation’s largest-ever test of a virtual power plant.
This successful test proved VPPs are a fast, low-cost, zero-emissions way to make better use of the clean energy we already have — and to keep the lights on as demand surges from data centers, heat waves, and electrification.”
Basically, they are talking about allowing residential batteries supply the grid during peak demand. I tend to be skeptical about stuff like this because in my own domain, water, there’s a lot of pop science and bold claims that ignore scaling and logistics. I asked a smart fellow in that industry about it
https://substack.com/@energycrystals
and I thought he gave a good answer that aligns with my experience with water, which is it always come down to implementation:
”The challenge is lining up customer telemetry to incentive structures that matter. With standard demand response products (which some people sell as VPPs), the incentives given to customers don’t pay for the battery and the software admin and API costs to the utilities outweigh the cost savings of a VPPVPPs are vaporware until someone can make the business model pencil and the API integration and UX not suck ass”
So, without knowing more, my prior is that this free capacity is there for a reason, and that utilities aren’t that dumb. On the flip side, I think it’s great that we are thinking this way. Probing our systems and looking for efficiencies are worthwhile. our legacy infrastructure is a mess of path dependent bureaucracy and I’m certain there’s gains to be made in addition to new construction.