VPP Data - Dec. 15, 2023
New EIA.gov data, 5 new VPPs, two VPP spinoffs and one new fundraise
VPP News
Demand response programs shrank in 2022, according to new data from the EIA.gov 861 survey of electric utilities and power marketers. Demand response incentives and enrollees fell slightly year over year. Total energy savings were up, but still below their pre-covid level:
The 861 survey does not prompt for Virtual Power Plants specifically, presumably most are rolled into these demand response estimates. If you’d like to discuss these trends, please reach out or reply to this email (EIA.gov 861 Tables 10.3 and 10.4, thanks to Jumana Al Hashal)
New FTC rule requiring easy “click to cancel” for subscription services may require utilities to streamline disenrollment and switching across demand response programs (Utility Dive)
ERCOT looks to redouble its demand response efforts as bid to reboot shuttered power plants fails (Utility Dive)
Profiles of several residential VPPs in Texas from Sunnova, Tesla and Octopus (Houston Chronicle)
Profile of Soleil Lofts, a Colorado-based VPP (Utility Dive)
Profile of Puget Sound Energy’s VPP with AutoGrid that plans to expand to 100 MW by 2025 (Latitude Media)
Union Square Ventures, the investor behind Leap, David Energy and Ostrom, published a thesis on “power electronics,” using software and specialized transistors to control voltage at the device level (USV.com)
VPP Platform Announcements
OhmConnect announced its partnership with SunPower in the California DSGS has provided 1.2 MWh and 400 MW of average capacity with 94% device participation since August (press release)
Leap announced it has surpassed 175K customer meters and 1 GW of load from 75 partner companies. The VPP platform also announced $4mm in new funding, now $60mm in total (Latitude Media, funding announcement, capacity announcement)
Schneider Electric is spinning off AutoGrid and combining it with its portfolio company Uplight, which provides software to utilities (Latitude Media, press release)
Google is spinning off its energy savings service, Nest Renew, and combining it with OhmConnect, a portfolio company of Google’s Sidewalk Investment Partners (The Verge)
New Startup
Hum Energy, an app that helps homeowners earn money by enrolling their energy devices into VPP programs, built on top of VPPdata.com (Hum Energy, X thread)
New VPP Programs
Public comments from a Davis, CA community organization recommend installing a VPP in the Village Farms Project, an upcoming housing development (DavisVanguard.org)
Chatham, MA is considering a VPP in partnership with solar developer Nexamp, according to public comments (Cape Cod Chronicle)
Chicago’s utility, ComEd, is planning a virtual power plant according to a public filing from the Illinois Commerce Commission (Illinois.gov PDF)
The Colorado PUC is pushing Xcel Energy to launch a new VPP by this summer (Utility Dive)
Polestar, an electric vehicle brand by Volvo, announced it would be testing V2G VPPs in California and Sweden (World-Energy.org)
See all 94 active and 27 planned VPPs in the public database.
Thank you to the readers who have submitted VPPs. If you would like more detail on any programs or to submit new programs, message me via LinkedIn or X or reply to this email.
Awesome work... thanks for doing this!