Google Signs “Bring Your Own Capacity” Agreement with Voltus to Unlock 100 MW from Grid

Distributed energy resource (DER) platform Voltus and Google announced a new three-year agreement with Google, aimed at unlocking unlock up to 100 MW of new electricity capacity from flexible distributed energy resources in the PJM grid region to support grid reliability and meet growing data center power demand.

Founded in 2016, San Francisco-based Voltus operates a distributed energy resource (DER) platform and virtual power plant operator that connects distributed energy resources to electricity markets, delivering less expensive, more reliable, and more sustainable electricity.

According to the companies, increases in electricity demand have traditionally been met through costly and time-intensive investments in grid expansion, despite much of the existing electricity infrastructure remaining unused for much of the year. They noted that increased use of virtual power plant (VPP) solutions could significantly improve utilization of existing grid resources, with a recent study estimating that U.S. consumers could save more than $100 billion over the next decade through broader deployment of VPPs.

Under the new “Bring Your Own Capacity” agreement, Voltus will orchestrate flexible distributed resources, such as batteries and smart thermostats, in order to reduce energy demand when the grid needs it, aggregating up to 100 MWof distributed energy resources (DERs) annually into a Google-funded virtual power plant (VPP). Voltus will compensate participating customers for providing capacity to the grid, enabling Google’s growing electricity needs to be met through existing distributed resources while generating economic benefits for PJM customers.

Michael Terrell, Global Head of Advanced Energy at Google said:

“We are excited to add this new solution to a growing toolkit that can accelerate a robust, flexible energy system, and to partner with Voltus to scale a first-of-its-kind model for unlocking capacity to meet new data center growth.”

The companies added that this initial agreement is designed to create an industry-leading scalable blueprint for how data center capacity needs can be met affordably and reliably through more efficient utilization of the grid.

Voltus CEO Dana Guernsey said:

“This initial phase of our Google partnership is pioneering a model that large load customers can follow, and we expect it to accelerate the role of distributed energy resources as a capacity solution at scale.”