US photo voltaic installer Sunrun has accomplished its first profitable season working a residential Digital Energy Plant (VPP) in a wholesale capability market, which the corporate mentioned was a “first-of-its-kind within the nation”.
From June to August, the Sunrun’s New England VPP shared greater than 1.8GWh of vitality again to the US’ grid, with hundreds of Sunrun photo voltaic houses in New England exporting extra photo voltaic vitality in the course of the peak demand window of 1pm-5pm.
“The VPP additionally helped minimise the usage of costly, polluting peaker crops whereas decreasing vitality prices throughout the area and guaranteeing a dependable supply of energy,” the corporate mentioned in a press release.
In 2019, the corporate received its cost-competitive bid into the Impartial System Operator – New England (ISO-NE). It was the primary profitable bid committing capability worth from house photo voltaic and battery storage techniques to the grid, in keeping with Sunrun.
And in an August report, ISO-NE detailed how house photo voltaic helped maintain wholesale system demand beneath the typical forecast all through a warmth wave in July.
“It’s great that we’re in a position to work with ISO-NE to combine native house photo voltaic and battery techniques into the wholesale markets,” mentioned Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, which has been driving the wave of robust demand for residential photo voltaic options within the US, including greater than 34,000 in Q2 this yr.
“This can be a great instance of radical collaboration and demonstrates the significance of each market operator leveraging native clear vitality assets to resolve capability constraints and grid reliability,” Powell continued.
When certain collectively to type VPPs, house photo voltaic and batteries can considerably help the grid and cut back peak demand, Sunrun mentioned.
