Voltus, Google sign three-year ‘Bring Your Own Capacity’ agreement
Virtual power plant (VPP) operator and distributed energy platform Voltus Inc. has announced a “landmark” three-year agreement with Google, aiming to create an industrial blueprint for data center capacity.
Dubbed ‘Bring Your Own Capacity,’ the agreement states that Voltus will aggregate up to 100 MW of distributed energy per year, including batteries, smart thermostats, and other flexible assets. The company will take those assets from local businesses and homes and feed them into a Google-funded VPP in PJM, the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic’s largest grid operator. Then, Voltus will pay the customers who participate in the VPP, allowing Google’s capacity demands to become real economic benefits for customers connected to PJM.
Through this grid linking process, those 100 MW worth of everyday electrical resources become a decentralized power plant for Google. When demand spikes, the system’s smart software will automatically take power from thousands of devices to cut into peak demand, although PJM customers are unlikely to notice the individual adjustments.
“We are proud to work with Google to bring clean capacity online while helping our customers save money,” says Voltus CEO Dana Guernsey. “This initial phase of our Google partnership is pioneering a model that large load customers can follow, and we expect it to accelerate the role of distributed energy resources as a capacity solution at scale.”
Sketching the energy industry blueprint
Meeting massive energy demand has historically required the construction and subsequent energization of more assets, Voltus says. That can take years, as well as billions of dollars in grid expansion, which only serves to further drive up costs for consumers. Conversely, a recent analysis by economics consulting firm Brattle Group has found that better utilizing existing energy assets can save $100 billion for U.S. consumers over the next ten years alone.
In light of recent research, Voltus and Google say they are committed to creating a scalable, industry-wide blueprint for feeding data center capacity. Michael Terrell, Google’s global head of advanced energy, says the tech giant has also made its own data center demand flexible, to the tune of unlocking 1 GW of demand response capacity.
“Google is committed to ensuring that our energy growth translates into a more reliable, affordable electricity future for local communities,” he says. “We are excited to add this new solution to a growing toolkit that can accelerate a robust, flexible energy system, and to partner with Voltus to scale a first-of-its-kind model for unlocking capacity to meet new data center growth.”
