News
Virtual Power Plants Are Coming to Save the Grid, Sooner Than You Might Think
Networks of thousands of home-based batteries could be key to a cleaner, more reliable electricity system.
By Dan Gearino
This summer could be the first one in which virtual power plants—networks of small batteries that work in tandem to function like power plants—are large enough to make their presence felt by helping to keep the lights on during the hottest days.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
State of Play
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.