A Virtual Power Plant is coming to California via Tesla
Elon Musk parters with California Utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company to provide a program allowing home battery owners to send excess energy to the state...
The mind of Elon Musk and the creations coming out of his companies such as Tesla and SpaceX is nothing less than amazing. Next on the list of bind-blowing projects is a partnered effort by Tesla and California Utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company as they launched a program that allows Powerwall home battery owners to send excess energy to the state’s power grid in times of need.
For every additional kilowatt-hour, you deliver during designated events you’ll receive $2/KwH. Contributors will receive push notifications before and during an event with details of its expected start and finish times. Once an event is over, each Powerwall will automatically resume normal operation.
According to PC Mag, the specifics are as such:
Virtual Power Plant participants must, of course, own a Powerwall (with or without solar), and are only eligible if they are an existing PG&E customer not enrolled in any conflicting programs (another VPP, demand response program, Community Choice Aggregator, etc.), with a valid Rule 21 interconnection agreement. Folks can sign up in the Tesla app and, if approved, are enrolled automatically.
Compensation depends on a number of factors, including energy capacity (i.e. the number of Powerwalls and your backup reserve settings), battery levels, and whether it can export all available energy.
A fully-charged Powerwall with a 20% backup reserve that typically serves 3kWh of energy during event hours, for example, could deliver an additional 7.8kWh to the grid, earning its owner $15.60. Someone with two Powerwalls, a backup reserve of 40%, and a typical 5 kWh load, meanwhile, would deliver 11.2kWh, which is worth $22.40.