On the hottest afternoons this summer, when residents across New England cranked their air conditioners, something noteworthy happened. Thousands of internet-connected thermostats, home solar panels and battery systems were called into action to help reduce the strain on the electric grid.
Welcome to the age of “virtual power plants,” or VPPs.
Virtual power plants are essentially a network of devices in homes and businesses that can be harnessed by utilities to add power, cut energy demand or both. Here’s how they work: Customers sign up to participate. Then, when electricity use spikes, the utilities may tell those customers’ Wi-Fi-connected thermostats to raise the temperature by a few degrees, reducing the demand for electricity. Or, the utilities may remotely instruct a home’s back-up battery to start powering lights and appliances, so they aren’t drawing electricity from the grid. In some cases, utilities may even slow operations at industrial facilities.
The idea is that by mobilizing a sea of individual devices across a wide area, virtual power plants can help balance supply and demand on the grid.
If that all sounds like something out of science fiction, energy experts say virtual power plants are already providing real benefits. They can decrease the likelihood of power outages when the grid gets overwhelmed. They can help slash greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding the use of older, more polluting power plants. And in the future, they may even save ratepayers billions of dollars by reducing the need to construct new power lines and other infrastructure to meet growing energy demands.