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Dive Brief:
- EnergyHub, which provides software for managing distributed energy assets, has released two tools for virtual power plant developers, operators and users: a testing framework to compare their performance to traditional generators and a five-level “maturity model” to address capability gaps.
- Named after an EnergyHub data scientist and inspired by the Turing test for artificial intelligence, the “Huels test” asks whether a grid operator can distinguish a gas peaker plant from a VPP based on their operational characteristics. To pass, the VPP must match the visibility, “schedulability” and availability of the peaker plant, EnergyHub says.
- The VPP maturity model spans manually-scheduled demand response events (Level 0) to “grid-adaptive VPPs” (Level 4) that continually and autonomously adjust to meet multiple objectives on transmission and distribution grids. Paul Hines, EnergyHub’s vice president of power systems, said in an interview that Level 4 VPPs could be ready for commercial deployment in “years, not decades.”
Hines said the efficiency provided by VPPs is needed as demand grows from electrification and new large loads, including data centers.
“There is enormous need for...