A 7.7 GW virtual power plant made up of distributed California solar plus storage assets could…
save electricity consumers $550 million annually by deploying about 7.7 GW of virtual power plant capacity by 2035
avoid $755 million in traditional power system costs
analyzed the cumulative potential of five VPP technologies, including smart thermostats, behind-the-meter batteries, managed electric vehicle charging, automated demand response for commercial and industrial users and grid-interactive water heating, while excluding high-potential technologies, such as bidirectional EV charging, that Brattle says still face technical or commercial barriers to widespread adoption
Current, California’s 1.6 GW in VPP capacity lies in traditional demand response, largely in the commercial and industrial sector, the report found
Green Mountain Power’s battery program, whose “generous incentives” have already achieved a 1% participation rate among all GMP customers and which the utility forecasts could scale to 8% participation by 2030
Of the 17 “sensitivity cases” Brattle examined that could push the state’s VPP potential higher or lower than the 7.7 GW-by-2035 base case, “participation” had the highest upside of around 12 GW, or about 4 GW above the base case