| Work Detail |
As record high temperatures scorch the West and continue to strain the power grid, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is piloting a new clean tech innovation: a virtual power plant (a VPP), which will reduce energy demand and put electricity back on the grid during peak hours – all through leveraging the capabilities of customer-owned smart thermostats, rooftop solar, energy storage and other connected resources such as water pumps.
Unlike a traditional power plant, a VPP does not rely on a physical facility to generate electricity for the grid to distribute to homes and businesses. Instead, it uses advanced software to aggregate and coordinate the functions of a collection of small-scale, decentralized resources located at customers’ homes and businesses to meet grid needs.
A VPP network can comprise a wide range of devices and resources – everything from home appliances such as electric vehicles and chargers to HVAC equipment and solar-plus-battery energy storage systems. Software programs run VPPs in concert with grid operations to dispatch communications signals to devices in the VPP network to either power down or discharge electricity from existing resources back to the grid.
Advertisement Quick BOLT
“When hundreds or thousands of businesses or homes are connected to a VPP and their resources are flexibly managed to charge or discharge electrons, they can help keep the lights on during hot summer days,” says SDG&E CCO Miguel Romero.
In August, as temperatures soared, SDG&E deployed its VPP pilot three times to support the grid during peak demand periods. Connected devices functioned as expected. Because of how well the pilot project has performed, SDG&E is considering expanding the program to other areas in the future. |
