Sunrun hails first season of virtual power plant in wholesale market
- US domestic solar as well as storage carrier Sunrun Inc (NASDAQ: RUN) on Tuesday claimed it has actually finished its first season operating a household virtual power plant (VPP) in a wholesale capacity market in what is a novelty for the United States.
The firm's New England VPP networked thousands of home solar systems to support the grid during peak need. The VPP sent out more than 1.8 GWh of power back to the grid in the summer months of June through August. The VPP likewise aided to minimize the use of costly and contaminating peaker plants.
In 2019, Sunrun won a bid to supply energy capacity to the Independent System Operator - New England (ISO-NE) that was the initial effective bid for offering capacity from home solar and battery storage systems to the grid. According to the company's 2019 statement the agreement is for 20 MW of power capacity, standing for about 5,000 New England consumers.
Sunrun president Mary Powell stated the partnership with ISO-NE shows "the importance of every market operator leveraging regional clean energy resources to address capacity restraints as well as grid reliability."
"As a lot more serious and frequent warm front, arctic freezes as well as various other climatic events remain to stress our country's grid, we highly urge grid drivers, energies and also policy manufacturers alike to utilize these outstanding solar power resources," Powell included.