Ford, GM, Google team up for 'virtual power plants'

Companies including General Motors (GM), Ford, Google and solar energy producers are reportedly working together to set standards for scaling up the use of virtual power plants (VPPs) that can ease loads on electricity grids when supply is short. 

The VPP is a concept in renewable energy, which uses computers and software to effectively crowdsource power from thousands of devices. The idea is similar to volunteer or decentralized computing projects, like the University of Pennsylvania's Folding@Home project, which remotely assimilates computing resources from volunteers to produce crowdsourced supercomputers that can be used for research. Such computers have been used extensively in medicine research during the pandemic.

As for the new initiative, Colorado-based non-profit group RMI that works in the area of accelerating the global energy transformation is leading the effort. By forming the new virtual power plant partnership, also known as VP3, RMI intends to catalyse industry and transform policy to support scaling energy assets such as EVs, smart thermostats, appliances, batteries, solar arrays, and others to support the grid.  
Apart from Ford, General Motors and Google, other founding members of this effort include OhmConnect, Olivine, SPAN, SunPower, Sunrun, SwitchDin, and Virtual Peaker. 

RMI has estimated that the virtual power plants can reduce peak US energy demand by 60 gigawatts by the year 2030 — and, by 2050, over 200 GW.

“Virtual power plants will enable grid planners and grid operators to better manage growing electricity demand from vehicles, from buildings and from industry, and make sure that the grid can stay reliable even in the face of ongoing extreme weather challenges and aging physical infrastructure,” Mark Dyson, the managing director of RMI’S carbon-free electricity program, told Reuters. 

Tesla has launched similar efforts in California, Texas, Australia, and most recently in Japan in December 2022. These facilities consist of distributed Tesla power-walls, organised for grid management, that allow households to get incentives for releasing solar-generated power during times of greater demand.