RMI, a leading nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the global energy transformation, announced the formation of the Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3). Initial funding of the VP3 effort was made possible by General Motors and Google Nest. VP3 includes founding members Ford, General Motors, Google Nest, OhmConnect, Olivine, SPAN, SunPower, Sunrun, SwitchDin, and Virtual Peaker.

Virtual power plants (VPPs) are portfolios comprising hundreds or thousands of households and businesses that offer the latent potential of their electric vehicles (EVs), smart thermostats, appliances, batteries, solar arrays, and additional energy assets to support the grid.

In a VPP, decentralized distributed energy resources (DERs) are aggregated into a portfolio. Customers themselves or their authorized energy management companies—with customer permission and the help of advanced software—can adjust charging, discharging, output, and demand from DERs in response to signals from markets and grid operators. In this way, VPPs can play an important role in seamlessly and efficiently matching energy supply and demand.

VP3 is an initiative based at RMI that works to catalyze industry and transform policy to support scaling VPPs in ways that help advance affordable, reliable electric sector decarbonization by overcoming barriers to VPP market growth. VP3 follows in the path of successful institutional spinoffs in the electric sector space previously incubated by RMI including the Clean Energy Buyers Association and the Energy Web Foundation.

With the guidance and support of its members, VP3 is working toward a future where businesses, households, and communities are empowered through VPPs which can help to support cost-effective energy, emissions reductions, and a more resilient electricity grid. To achieve this, VP3 will work to:

• Catalog, research, and communicate VPP benefits

• Develop industry-wide best practices, standards, and roadmaps

• Inform and shape policy development