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A growing number of homeowners are getting paid to leverage their rooftop solar, battery storage, and electric vehicles to help prevent power outages and clean up the grid.
Their at-home renewable energy is being networked together to form "virtual power plants" in states like California, Vermont, Texas, and Utah, where energy agencies and utilities are tapping these resources to meet peak electricity demand during extreme weather. These VPPs are lowering costs and keeping dirtier "peaker" gas plants, which are typically used during emergencies, offline. In exchange, homeowners are paid anywhere from a few hundred dollars to up to $10,500 in one year, depending on the program.
GoodLeap, which finances and develops software for sustainable home energy systems, launched its own VPP program this summer in California by aggregating 200 of its customers' batteries. The storage capacity is made available to a state-wide grid support program run by the California Energy Commission. So far, the batteries have helped alleviate six "stress" events since July, including during heat waves, GoodLeap said. The company offered customers up to $350 this year for participating, and GoodLeap gets paid by the state program at varied monthly rates.
While versions of VPPs have existed for years — including utilities adjusting thermostats and water heaters to conserve energy — what's new is the rising adoption of home solar panels, battery storage, and EV chargers that can send power back to the grid. The extra capacity is critical at a time when extreme heat and storms are causing more power outages and electricity demand is surging from data centers and a US manufacturing boom.
The Energy Department estimated that between 2023 and 2030, the US will have to add enough power capacity to meet more than 200 gigawatts of peak demand, which is comparable to about 200 nuclear power plants. At least 10% to 20% of that demand could be met by VPPs, which have a lot of untapped potential across the US, all while saving some $10 billion in annual grid costs.
"We're still in the single-digits, in terms of the percentage of homeowners that have solar and battery storage in the US," Dan Lotano, GoodLeap chief strategy officer, told Business Insider. "So as utility rates continue to rise and technology costs are driven down, I'm bullish about where this market can go. And now we've added another value bucket to homeowners that they couldn't access beforehand."
GoodLeap's entry into VPPs trails behind its competitor in the home energy market, Sunrun. The company already has 16,200 customers enrolled in the California Energy Commission's program, which launched in 2022. Sunrun has aggregated enough battery capacity to match a natural gas "peaker" plant or take the entire city of Santa Monica off the grid, according to Chris Rauscher, Sunrun's head of grid services and VPPs. Sunrun in California auto-enrolls customers who are paid $100 a year, while ensuring that batteries maintain at least 20% charge in case people need backup power.
"We have been called on all summer long," Rauscher said.
Sunrun is also working with three owners of the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning in Maryland to test its ability to power homes during peak summer demand to ease pressure on the grid. The truck owners are customers of Baltimore Gas and Electric Company.
Brian Foreman is one of the early adopters. In late June, after several months of Ford and Sunrun troubleshooting software, the battery in Foreman's Ford-150 started powering his home from the peak hours of 5pm to 9pm each night. Foreman said he paid $9,200 for the installation of a bidirectional power system, and now earns $500 a month for participating in the pilot this summer through September.
"I feel like I'm playing a part in making the grid more resilient," Foreman told BI.
Some utilities are warming up to leveraging VPPs for several reasons. In 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity markets, required power grid operators to develop plans for integrating homeowners' rooftop solar, batteries, EVs, and energy-smart devices into the market. Many utilities are also struggling to meet renewable energy targets, in part because it takes a long time to build big infrastructure projects in the US and hook them up to the power grid.
"It's really hard to build utility-scale solutions," Sunrun CEO Mary Powell told BI last month. "I long ago said we went from NIMBY to BANANA, which is 'build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.'"
"I think all arrows point to innovation," Powell added. "Let's leverage technologies that are more cost-effective because they're paid for by the customers that are installing them."
Before leading Sunrun, Powell was president and CEO of Green Mountain Power, Vermont's largest utility. The utility's energy supply is already 100% carbon-free, including renewable and nuclear power, and it's been a trailblazer in VPPs since 2015. That year, Green Mountain Power started subsidizing some customers who installed backup battery power as long as they shared it during peak demand.
The program has grown to more than 4,000 batteries with a capacity of nearly 70 megawatts — or similar to a larger gas power plant in the state, according to Kristin Carlson, vice president of strategy and external relations at Green Mountain Power. The utility has saved about $3 million annually in recent years, which is passed onto all customers. Homeowners can get up to $10,500 upfront to buy and install their own batteries, or $5,500 for two Tesla Powerwalls, as long as they participate in the VPP for 10 years.
"Because we are able to use our virtual power plant, we're not having to purchase expensive and often dirty power from the regional grid," Carlson said. "We've been able to retire two fossil-fuel-powered peaker plants. That's cut carbon emissions."
