Renew Home

We are partnering with NRG Energy to build a 1 GW virtual power plant in Texas. Based on our deep experience building customer-centric VPPs and super charged with Google Cloud AI, we aim to provide scalable, flexible, and resilient energy capacity for the Texas grid while helping households reduce their electricity costs. As electricity prices, weather events, and peak demand continue to increase, this is what the future of energy management looks like. https://lnkd.in/gWb8iwsf #RenewableEnergy #Energy #EnergyTransition

Advanced Energy United has experienced tremendous growth over the past couple of years, allowing us to expand our reach and increase the breadth and depth of our engagement with decisionmakers as we advocate for more market-changing energy and transportation policy.?? ? Our Board of Directors is growing too, and last week the Board welcomed several new additions from member companies that have made strategic commitments in support of our mission and organization, including: Cisco DeVries of Renew Home Erika Diamond of EnergyHub? J.D. Sitton of CTC Global Matt Stanberry of Highland Electric Fleets Neil Veilleux of Uplight Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e2BS3xGc

VPPs aren't just a future solution; they can enable massive carbon pollution avoidance this year. By increasing deployment speed and designing for regular and responsive dispatches, VPPs can make an even bigger impact. The new report from RMI unveils new environmental benefits of VPPs and offers insights into the conditions that will help us realize that potential. https://lnkd.in/gThcH5SF

Peaker plants aren’t the solution to our peak load problem. Will Baker, Cisco DeVries and Vince Faherty explore a cost-effective, low carbon alternative we can deploy today: residential VPPs. Missed this RE+ talk today? Catch it again Wednesday at noon in the Industry Trends Theatre. Not at RE+? More in our position paper. https://lnkd.in/gHRY6RCS #REPlus24

Add this one to your calendar! We can’t wait to see you there. #REPlus24

ERCOT broke multiple demand records last week. The fact that most Texas residents are unaware of that underscores?the vital importance of a diverse energy stack. This Canary Media Inc. piece lays out the events in detail, including the heroic?role solar?+ storage played in keeping Texas powered and the real winners of the day: the 22 million residents that kept their lights (and air conditioners) on. We can only presume Texas will set more heat and demand records in the years to come. As the state continues to shift towards a more diverse — and ultimately cleaner and more cost-effective — energy mix, Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) can help manage the transition from solar as daylight fades and reduce grid strain without relying solely on gas-powered peakers. https://lnkd.in/gtc-g9A3

The Next Frontier in Grid Optimization: Smart Homes ??? This Bloomberg piece highlights the emergence of residential power management systems as integral to our grid management future. Key takeaways?? ?Home energy systems are evolving into sophisticated power trading platforms, optimizing energy use and interacting with the grid in real-time. ?Virtual Power Plants could add up to 162GW of capacity in the U.S. by 2030. We can get to 70GW just from pairing HVAC-equipped homes with smart thermostats! ?Smart home energy management could potentially offset billions in infrastructure upgrades. It's clear homes have a role to play in navigating the energy transition; let's put them to work.

"Your thermostat may only move a degree or two, but the real work happens when that is happening in concert with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other homes" Ben Brown illustrates how VPPs are supporting the grid and helping households take advantage of lower energy costs in this CNET article out this week.

Last week our friends at Google Nest launched their next generation Nest Learning Thermostat. It’s an energy-saving machine, and a great tool on the path to a cleaner energy future. Inspired by the award-winning original, it’s their smartest thermostat yet. And it comes with Nest Renew, a set? of smart energy features powered by Renew Home. That includes Energy Shift, which can help shift your home’s electricity use to cleaner and cheaper times. https://lnkd.in/gs-v4k4z

The grid is sleeping on 70 GW of peak load shift potential. Read our new paper, “Smart Thermostats and the Future of VPPs” to see why (link in first comment). TLDR? Most conversations about virtual power plants center on emerging technologies like battery storage or EVs. There’s also a large-scale, ready-to-activate resource right in front of us: 82M+ U.S. homes that could be paired with a smart thermostat to make them grid responsive. Together they could create a virtual power plant with capacity equal to the peak summer electric utility demand in the state of Florida. And that’s just thermostats!