We’ve got another DERVOS content announcement for you! Our third ThunDERdome of the day will cover the most infamous topic in our space. Check out the details below!
Deploying and Orchestrating GWs of Distributed Capacity
It’s time to transition from hype to happening.
Ever since the term Virtual Power Plant was coined about a decade ago, many have felt they’ve been overhyped. Frankly, that might be right.
But over the last 18 months, we’ve seen something change. For the first time, utilities and grid operators seem to asking for VPPs. The industry used to beg for permission to participate, but its now accepting invitations.
Aggregating and dispatching DERs used to be about offering emergency capacity, or maybe some economic optimization on the margin. Compare that to today, where this asset class is being deployed to meet load growth.
Utilities are short capacity and need all the help they can get. Gas plants aren’t easy to build these days, nuclear takes forever, and grid-scale solar and wind are deployable but need firming/flexibility. And it turns out, a properly managed VPP can at times be even more valuable than a traditional power plant.
VPPs have graduated from nice-to-have to must-have.
Speakers
For this ThunDERdome we've pulled together guests representing each quadrant on the 2-axis chart of deployer versus orchestrator and power-market vs. vertically-integrated context.
Ryan Long, Executive Vice President at Xcel Energy, led a distributed capacity procurement in his previous role as the President of Xcel Energy for the Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota service territories. Under this model, Xcel will procure and operate DERs as a part of their planning process, to meet resource adequacy and improve system reliability. You can learn more about this concept in the DERTF episode with Pier LaFarge.
Seth Frader-Thompson, Co-Founder and CEO of EnergyHub, has quietly built what we believe is the largest VPP in the country. And they’ve done it with zero hype. And interestingly, despite talk about VPPs often being hyper market oriented, EnergyHub’s customer base is 90%+ within vertically-integrated utilities. To hear more about Seth’s story and how ENergyHub was built, check out this recent episode of the DERTF podcast.
Dana Guernsey, co-founder and CEO of Voltus, aggregates DERs of all shapes and sizes and dispatches into power markets. To learn more about Dana and Voltus, listen to the recent DER Task Force podcast that featured her.
Buy your tickets before the sell out!