In the first part of this interview with Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan we heard about how Swell Energy has been working to ‘productise’ the virtual power plant proposition: making it attractive to utilities and to their end-customers and then wrapping that into a long-term agreement. This time out, we speak to Suleman about some of the finer details of the VPP proposition and where he thinks the market is heading.
As society moves away from centralised fossil fuel generators to increasing shares of distributed renewable energy resources, the idea that customers’ homes could become host to virtual power plants (VPPs), joining the dots between electricity supply and demand across the grid, has gradually gathered traction. Andy Colthorpe speaks with Suleman Khan CEO of Swell Energy, which has raised nearly half a billion dollars in financing for solar-plus-storage VPPs in 14,000 homes across California, New York and Hawaii.
The CEO of US virtual power plant provider Swell Energy has said that New York utility company Con Edison has been “very progressive” in recognising the value that aggregated home battery systems paired with solar can offer.
Hitachi ABB Power Grids will supply battery energy storage and smart controls to Singapore’s first virtual power plant (VPP), on a project aimed at validating methods for integrating more renewable energy onto the city-state’s electricity networks.
Solar-plus-storage systems at customers’ homes in Hawaii will create a “comprehensive” virtual power plant (VPP) network on three Hawaiian islands of up to 6,000 individual systems.
Distributed energy storage systems made by power management company Eaton will be able to participate in grid balancing markets through integration with a virtual power plant (VPP) platform developed by electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment provider Virta.
