Tesla has received approval from the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) to launch two virtual power plants for Powerwall owners in Texas.
Virtual power plants (VPP) are becoming one of Tesla’s most underappreciated products.
Tesla is using its existing and growing fleet of Powerwalls to aggregate their power capacity and offer electric grid services to utilities while compensating homeowners for using their home battery packs.
The company’s California virtual power plant has already proved successful in its first year.
Earlier this year, Tesla indicated that it planned to offer new VPPs in Texas and Puerto Rico.
Today, the Public Utility Commission of Texas announced that it has approved two new VPPs:
Two “virtual power plants” (VPPs) are now qualified and able to provide dispatchable power to the Texas electric grid, which is operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). This marks a first for the state’s electricity market and is part of the Aggregate Distributed Energy Resource (ADER) pilot project the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) directed ERCOT to begin developing in June 2022. The pilot project tests how consumer-owned, small energy devices, such as battery energy storage systems, backup generators, and controllable Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers, can be virtually aggregated and participate as a resource in the wholesale electricity market, strengthening grid reliability.
Texas wants to take better advantage of the small energy storage that Texans are deploying – primarily Tesla Powerwalls.
PUCT says that there is already 2.3 GW of capacity from small energy storage devices in Texas and 300 MW was added so far in 2023 alone.