SAN FRANCISCO — Voltus and Google announced Thursday an expanded agreement to build a 1 gigawatt virtual power plant in the PJM grid region, which serves 67 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia.
The two companies first agreed in June to deliver 100 megawatts of flexible power capacity in PJM. Thursday’s announcement adds 1,070 megawatts, described in the announcement as one of the largest distributed capacity portfolios a hyperscaler has deployed.
Voltus will gather that capacity from local businesses and homes and fold it into the Google-funded plant. When the grid is under strain, Voltus signals those sites, which can then cut their energy use through batteries, smart thermostats, industrial process adjustments and other flexible assets, according to the announcement.
Participating customers receive bill savings and direct payments in return. The announcement cited a report from The Brattle Group predicting that U.S. consumers could save more than $100 billion over the next decade through better grid utilization.
“Distributed energy resources are powerful tools for managing a modern, reliable grid while keeping energy affordable.”
Zuckerman, head of energy market development for North and South America at Google, said the tenfold expansion shows the company’s effort to “actively bring our own capacity to the grids that serve us,” and that buying capacity this way supports regional reliability in PJM while delivering economic benefits to local communities.
“This significant expansion of our work with Google translates data center growth into direct economic benefits for businesses and homes,” said Dana Guernsey, chief executive of Voltus. “Through this partnership we are proud to bring much needed clean capacity online, at gigawatt scale.”
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