Virtual power plants are combinations of home rooftop solar systems and battery packs that allow individual homeowners or businesses to put power onto the electricity grid, in essence turning themselves into a power plant.
Swell Energy procures the solar panels from various manufacturers and the battery systems from Austin, Texas-based Tesla Inc.
In turn, customers save by not having to draw power from the grid when prices are high and through incentive compensation.
Earlier this year, Swell Energy started setting up two of these virtual networks in partnership with Southern California Edison: one in Orange County capable of generating 20 megawatts per hour and another in Santa Barbara/Ventura counties capable of generating 14 megawatts of total capacity. To reach these levels of virtual power plant generation, Swell Energy has to sign up thousands of individual homeowner and small business customers.
This year, Swell started to recruit a target of 300 customers of Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. in Queens and 6,000 Hawaiian Electric customers on the islands of Hawaii, Maui and Oahu. In October, Swell announced a contract deal with Eureka-based Redwood Coast Energy Authority. And on Dec. 9, Swell Energy announced it is working with Edison, San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric, a unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, on pilot projects to expand customer participation.
