Virtual power plants (VPPs) in California using technologies including home batteries and demand response (DR) could provide 7.5GW of capacity in ten years’ time, 15% of peak demand, analysis from consultancy the Brattle Group shows.

News in brief from around the world in Energy Storage.

Shell Overseas Investments BV has acquired German virtual power plant (VPP) operator Next Kraftwerke, expanding its footprint in the space.

FERC Order 841 looks set to allow distributed storage to participate in wholesale markets in the US. Energy-Storage.news has collected a wide range of reactions and views from industry participants on what it means.

More than 500 residential energy storage batteries will be aggregated into a virtual power plant (VPP) by US utility Portland General Electric (PGE), with some participating households offered US$5,000 rebates on battery system purchases as well as money off their monthly electricity bills.

The software platform now incorporates data from a SolarEdge inverter, meaning clients can run residential storage dispatch simulations and work out the optimum schedule for operations.

Israel-headquartered SolarEdge launched a software platform for aggregating household energy storage units – and other distributed energy equipment – into virtual power plants, last week. The company’s solution has already been chosen for a VPP project in Australia by AGL, one of the country’s biggest utilities. The commercial launch of the VPP platform direct to customers is now underway. Andy Colthorpe spoke with Lior Handelsman, one of SolarEdge’s founders and vice president of marketing and product strategy.