China launches world's largest VPP and first of its kind in China, with some caveats

February 5, 2019 | Case Study

Virtual power plants (VPPs) have gained considerable traction in the electricity sector, moving from small pilots to large business-driven deployments. Through aggregation of distributed resources and synchronizing their dispatch over a wide area, VPPs can provide location-dependent value and flexibility in ways that centralized power plants can't. In Germany, Sonnen has developed the country’s largest aggregation of distributed storage, providing dispatchable capacity to compensate for aggressive renewables penetrations under Germany's Energiewende policies. Similary, in South Australia, Tesla and Sunverge are deploying their own VPPs to help stabilize the region's volatile energy market. However, what makes VPPs function effectively and economically is a deregulated market that offers compensation for a variety of power and energy services.