The Customer-Powered Grid™: Enabling the Energy Transition with Distributed Energy Resources and Virtual Power Plants

Compounding factors drive a greater need for flexibility in the energy transition, including retiring fossil-fuel generators, more wind and solar, accelerating vehicle electrification and more extreme weather events.

Distributed energy resources are pivotal in helping the power grid smoothly transition to clean energy. Deployed at customer sites and in the distribution grid, DERs are grid-connected assets or devices that consume, store or generate power and can respond to a signal. Common examples include grid-interactive commercial and industrial buildings, backup generators, battery storage, smart thermostats and electric vehicle chargers. DERs are particularly well-suited for supplying this much-needed grid flexibility because they are cost-effective, can be deployed rapidly and can provide a wide range of grid services.

This white paper elaborates on the potential that DERs offer and the benefits that could come from fully unlocking their value. In sharing their experience, analysis and insights, CPower intends to begin a broader discussion about how we could collectively smooth the energy transition through DERs in general and VPPs specifically.