New Berkeley Lab Reports on Virtual Power Plants and DER Aggregations

Increased adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs), growing quantities of renewable energy on the grid, and load growth from buildings, industry, and data centers are driving the need for increased demand flexibility, and solutions to reliably and cost-effectively balance electricity supply and demand. In order to deploy DERs on a similar scale as conventional supply-side resources, utilities and state decision-makers are exploring a range of programmatic approaches and market designs.

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Market and Retail-rate Knowhow for the Energy Transition (MARKET) initiative, we are pleased to announce the release of five Berkeley Lab reports that identify successful and high impact strategies to advance virtual power plants (VPPs) and DER aggregations in retail and wholesale markets.

Using in-depth interviews with utilities and VPP solutions providers that have achieved considerable scale or rapid growth in program deployment, the first report —Distributed Energy, Utility Scale: 30 Proven Strategies to Increase VPP Enrollment —identifies 30 proven strategies for scaling VPPs through increased enrollment. The study includes specific actions for regulators, utilities and VPP solutions providers to increase VPP enrollment and deliver important customer and utility benefits.

Also based on interviews with more than twenty subject matter experts on VPPs, a second report identifies Insights into Scaling Virtual Power Plants. It outlines actions that utilities and regulators can take to expand VPPs, organized around successful VPP designs, deployment, and operation. The report focuses on the role of leadership in successful VPP planning and implementation, grid and technology investments, and VPP program planning and design. Register here for a free webinar on the findings from this report, and the companion report Virtual Power Plant Profiles and Inventory. Authors will discuss findings from both reports, including actions that utilities and regulators can take to rapidly expand VPPs deployment, and provide an overview of the conceptual profiles and VPP Inventory.

The third report documents the Virtual Power Plant Profiles and Inventory, which describes three conceptual VPPs profiles that can be used as a starting point to facilitate clear discussions among regulators, utilities, solution providers, and stakeholders about various VPP strategies. It also includes details on more than 790 demand response programs and net energy metering solar plus battery programs, and 180 VPP programs. The publicly available resource characterizes VPPs by location, implementor, DER type(s), capacity (megawatts) and equity attributes. Register here for a free webinar on the findings from this report, and the companion report Insights into Scaling Virtual Power Plants. Authors will discuss findings from both reports, including actions that utilities and regulators can take to rapidly expand VPPs deployment, and provide an overview of the new Virtual Power Plant Inventory.

The fourth report discusses a new maturity model that regulators and utilities can use to guide and expand demand flexibility programs and enable the resources to provide more grid services. The report, titled Moving Beyond Direct Load Control: A Maturity Model for Realizing the Promise of Demand Flexibility, has six demand flexibility categories: planning and design; customer engagement; program operations; evaluation, measurement and verification; distributed energy resource orchestration; and data infrastructure. Within each category, capabilities are identified and described on a maturity scale that ranges from performing below expectations to improving on best practices. Register here for a free webinar on the report. The authors will describe the maturity model categories and capabilities.

The fifth report identifies State regulatory opportunities to advance distributed energy resources aggregations in wholesale markets.  The report discusses how state regulators can promote the participation of DERs in wholesale markets, including complementary actions that they can take to support Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 2222 implementation. The report also summarizes wholesale market operators’ Order 2222 compliance and associated compliance challenges along with potential state regulator roles. The report identifies actions that state regulators can take to accelerate DER aggregations providing grid services. Register here for a free webinar on the report. Authors will discuss challenges in incorporating DER aggregations into wholesale electricity markets, characterize the various approaches that are emerging to address those challenges, and identify where state regulators can have a complementary role to accelerate inclusion of DER aggregations in wholesale markets and ultimately advance grid affordability, efficiency, and reliability.

We thank the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for their support of this work.