THE EMERGING VIRTUAL POWER PLANT OPPORTUNITY

Virtual Power Plants; Demand Response, Supply-Side, Mixed Asset, and Wholesale Auction Smart Grid Aggregation and Optimization Networks

1Q 2013 (Pike Research/Navigant)

“…[A] virtual power plant (VPP)…[uses] software systems to remotely and automatically dispatch and optimize generation, demand-side, or storage resources (including plug-in electric vehicles and bi-directional inverters) in a single, secure web-connected system. VPPs can provide extraordinary value and services to transmission and distribution (T&D) grid infrastructure, as well as revenue streams to myriad stakeholders engaged in the provision of electric power.

click to enlarge

“The primary goal of a VPP is to achieve the greatest possible profit for asset owners while at the same time maintaining the proper balance of the electricity grid…”

“From the outside, the VPP looks like a single power production facility which publishes one schedule of operation and which can be optimized from a single, remote site. From the inside, the VPP can combine a rich diversity of independent resources into a network via sophisticated planning, scheduling, and bidding of distributed energy resource (DER)-based services…

“…Pike Research forecasts that vendor revenue from VPPs, in an average forecast scenario, will reach $3.6 billion in 2020…”

Tweet