Virtual Power Plant (VPP)

A virtual power plant aggregates distributed energy resources — home and commercial batteries, smart thermostats, EV chargers, rooftop solar, flexible industrial load — under a control layer that lets a grid operator or market treat the fleet as one dispatchable resource. Nothing new is built: the assets are already installed and financed by their owners, and the VPP rents their availability for a limited number of hours each year. US VPPs enrolled roughly 38 GW in 2025, up 21% year over year, with residential battery enrolment up 153%. The DOE targets 80–160 GW by 2030, equal to 10–20% of peak demand and about $10 billion in annual grid savings. Brattle Group puts 400 MW of VPP resource adequacy at roughly $2 million a year against about $43 million for equivalent new gas plus grid upgrades. Key limits: most residential batteries give only 2–4 hours, participation is voluntary and must be derated, and value is locational — aggregated resources only relieve a constraint if they sit behind it.