RMI Expands “Virtual Power Plant Partnership” Adding Industry-Leading Businesses
Leading Businesses in Virtual Power Plant-Related Sectors Join VP3 Initiative to Catalyze VPP Market Growth
BOULDER, CO
RMI, a leading nonprofit dedicated to the energy transition, announced the major expansion of the Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3) Wednesday. New members Autogrid, Camus Energy, CPower, Elexity, eleXsys Energy, EnergyHub, Fortress Power, Leap, NRG, Qcells, sonnen, Sunverge Energy Inc., and Swell Energy have joined the initiative to scale the market for virtual power plants (VPPs).
“Virtual power plants are this century’s greatest untapped energy resource, and are already providing essential grid services by reducing peak power demand and improving resilience in a world of increasingly extreme climate events,” said Mark Dyson, Managing Director of RMI’s Carbon-Free Electricity program. “VP3 is excited to welcome so many new members working on all aspects of Virtual Power Plants. We can’t wait to learn from and collaborate with a broad range of industry experts who will lend critical support and perspectives to the work of scaling this key solution for the future of the electric grid.”
VP3 will leverage partnerships with its new and existing members to address policy, regulatory, and market-based challenges in order to seize the potential offered by VPPs.
Statements From New Members
“Since joining the VP3 initiative, AutoGrid has benefited from the growing collaboration among its diverse membership of OEMs, vendors, partners, and energy retailers,” said AutoGrid CEO Ruben Llanes. “We are all committed to ensuring device interoperability and data access, reducing regulatory friction, and communicating the essential role VPPs can play in stabilizing the grid and accelerating the energy transition.”
“We’re proud to collaborate with fellow industry leaders ushering in a new era of electric grid operations,” said Astrid Atkinson, CEO of Camus Energy. “Camus provides holistic grid orchestration and virtual power plant coordination through our software platform, empowering utilities and virtual power plant operators to work together to support load growth from electrification while keeping costs low. Together with our fellow VP3 members, we’re paving the way for reliable and affordable electrification for all.”
“CPower is excited to collaborate with like-minded industry leaders to strengthen our efforts to create the Customer-Powered Grid by educating stakeholders on the immense value that VPPs can provide to energy users, the grid, and our environment—when enabled by the appropriate public policy support,” said Ken Schisler, Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs at CPower. “We look forward to working closely with the VP3 community to share our experience managing and growing North America’s largest, most-diverse VPP in partnership with industry, technology, and policymakers to deliver enhanced grid reliability and enable the clean energy transition.”
“The fact that VP3 members represent some of the most important segments of the US economy really speaks to the potential for Virtual Power Plants.” said Mike Grenier, President of Elexity.
“EnergyHub is excited to join the first and only organization dedicated to the proliferation of VPPs,” said Brady Klein, Senior Manager, Market Development at EnergyHub. “We’re excited to bring our experience and learnings from scaling flexibility programs for over 60 utility clients to the table as a part of VP3. I’m confident that VP3’s plans to accelerate VPP adoption is exactly what’s needed to highlight our industry’s progress to date, communicate the power of VPPs to a diverse stakeholder audience, and demonstrate that the grid-edge technology is reliable and ready for massive growth in the coming years.”
“Fortress Power is excited to be an inaugural member of the VP3 Initiative. We believe the group will enable utilities and RTOs/ISOs to cost effectively use DER aggregations to help enhance grid stability and promote decarbonization of the power sector,“ said Brian London, VP of Energy Services, Fortress Power.
“We’re seeing a massive adoption of smart energy technologies in homes and businesses, and with that comes an unprecedented opportunity to scale up virtual power plant solutions,” said Andrew Hoffman, Leap’s Chief Development Officer. “Leap is excited to join the Virtual Power Plant Partnership to help unlock the full potential of virtual power plants to improve grid resilience, lower carbon emissions and create real value for participants.”
“NRG looks forward to a day when all consumers are allowed to choose to flex their demand and be paid for doing so. We are confident VP3 can play an important role in pulling down regulatory and technology barriers that block a genuinely two-sided electricity market, where demand interacts intelligently and efficiently with supply,” said Travis Kavulla, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at NRG.
“Qcells is committed to delivering reliable, affordable clean energy to communities across America, and RMI’s Virtual Power Plant Partnership is key to ensuring more people benefit from an all-electric economy,” said Justin Lee, CEO of Qcells. “We are thrilled to join RMI and this growing group of innovators in our shared goal to expand clean energy access in America.”
“As a global leader in VPPs, sonnen has already successfully designed and implemented behind-the-meter projects in diverse U.S. utility markets, including Utah, California and the Northeast. Our technology combines batteries and intelligent proprietary grid-edge software to provide a solution that goes beyond solar Net Metering and beyond backup power,” said Geoff Ferrell VP Global C&I and U.S. VPP Project Business at sonnen, Inc. “We’re excited to join RMI’s VP3 Initiative and bring our expertise and thought leadership to help drive best practices. Together we can dramatically scale sustainable solutions for our energy challenges which allow utilities, solar partners and end customers to achieve the goal of providing clean, reliable, and affordable energy to everyone.”
“We are excited to join RMI’s VP3 initiative and share our insights and decade long experience to help inform the roadmap for further growth of virtual power plants globally. As an early pioneer in the VPP space – with our first load control, energy storage and distributed solar real-time VPP launching in 2012 – Sunverge brings a wealth of experience that can be leveraged to help grow the VPP market to the next level,” said Martin Milani, CEO of Sunverge. “The power industry is just scratching the surface of the value that VPP’s can provide to consumers, utilities, grid, and society. We see the capabilities of VPP as multifaceted and dynamic, moving us far beyond traditional demand response. Thoughtfully deployed, VPP’s will transform the power sector with greater integration of renewables, vehicle-to-grid integration, holistic and adaptive load management, greater grid resiliency and flexibility, and more.”
“Joining VP3 with energy sector peers who are dedicated to catalyzing change isn’t just about envisioning the future of energy, it’s about collectively breaking down barriers to market growth and leading the charge towards a more sustainable, equitable, and reliable power sector,” said Suleman Khan, CEO of Swell Energy. “The VP3 platform allows us to collaborate on informing and influencing policies and standards that are critical to the rapid deployment of decarbonized VPP solutions, many of which are readily available today.”
About VP3
VP3 is an initiative based at RMI that works to catalyze industry and transform policy to support scaling VPPs in ways that help advance affordable, reliable electric sector decarbonization by overcoming barriers to VPP market growth. Virtual power plants are portfolios comprised of hundreds or thousands of households and businesses that offer the latent potential of their electric vehicles (EVs), smart thermostats, appliances, batteries, solar arrays, and additional energy assets to support the grid.
VP3 members span the automotive, building, energy service, software, and other sectors. With the guidance and support of its members, VP3 is working toward a future where businesses, households, and communities are empowered through VPPs which can help to support cost-effective energy, emissions reductions, and a more resilient electricity grid.
To achieve this, VP3 will work to:
- Catalog, research, and communicate VPP benefits
- Develop industry-wide best practices, standards, and roadmaps
- Inform and shape policy development
Contact
Adam Beitman, abeitman@rmi.org or 202-670-5585