Connecticut officials are hoping to boost participation in the state’s nascent energy storage program through the use of a new artificial intelligence platform designed to create networks of home batteries known as “virtual power plants.”
Earlier this month, the Connecticut Green Bank announced a partnership with GoodLeap, a financial technology company based in California that helps customers install and aggregate solar and battery-storage systems.
The company has also developed its own AI software, known as GoodGrid, to operate its virtual power plants — a broad term used to describe any network of interconnected devices such as batteries, smart thermostats and electric vehicle chargers that can be be controlled remotely to reduce strain on the electric grid.
The company launched its first GoodGrid virtual power plant in California last year and has since signed up more than 2,000 subscribers in that state and in Texas.
During periods of demand such as a hot summer afternoon, GoodGrid’s software can access the power stored by its subscribers by remotely switching their homes to run off battery power — thus freeing up electric capacity — or even sending excess power back onto the grid.
In addition, company officials say, the software is capable of responding to more unexpected events, such as a power plant going offline suddenly.
“Within five minutes, we can aggregate all these systems and manage to dispatch that energy back into the grid,” said Daniel Lotano, the company’s chief operating and strategy officer.
GoodLeap would not be the first company to operate such a system in Connecticut, but it has set an ambitious goal to sign up more than 3,000 subscribers in its first year of operation, with a total capacity of about 25 megawatts of electricity.
That far exceeds the number of residential customers already signed up for similar programs, according to the Green Bank. Currently, about 500 households with a combined capacity of 5.8 megawatts in battery storage have connected their systems to VPPs.
“Solar today is being deployed at record numbers in Connecticut,” said Bryan Garcia, the president of the Green Bank. “It’s just they’re not being deployed including batteries. So we are working hard to showcase a sign: Connecticut, we are open for business for storage too.”
Customers who wish to sign up for a battery-storage VPP program are eligible to receive an up-front rebate of between $7,000 and $8,000 from the Green Bank to partially offset the cost of installing the equipment, Garcia said. In exchange, the customer must agree to program their batteries to discharge stored power during weekday afternoons from June to August.
In addition, customers can receive additional “performance” incentives by allowing their systems to discharge at other times of peak demand.
The cost of those incentives is paid for by the state’s Energy Storage Solutions Program, which in turn is funded through a portion of the public benefits charge on utility bills. Garcia said the program is designed to lower the overall cost of this bills, however, by reducing peak electric demand.
Claire Coleman, the head of the state’s Office of Consumer Counsel, said in a statement that she supports the deployment of VPPs, “where cost effective.”
“They are an important tool in increasing demand flexibility and improved integration of distributed energy resources to better support grid needs,” she said.
In addition to battery-storage programs funded by Green Bank, utility customers can also participate in VPPs through the use of smart thermostats or as part of an electric vehicle charging system.
Jamie Ratliff, a spokeswoman for Eversource, said that more than 46 megawatts of battery storage was being managed as part of VPP programs across utility’s service area in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
“We support using local clean energy resources as virtual power plants (VPPs), which can help address grid needs, defer system upgrades when possible, and help lower costs for customers,” Ratliff said in a statement.
In addition to harnessing stored energy, VPP operators can also use their networks to reduce the strain on the electric grid even further by having subscribers manage their consumption more efficiently. That can include steps such as adjusting the thermostat or recharging an electric vehicle at night, when demand is typically lower.
There have been some concerns raised about the ability of VPPs to access a user’s system remotely, without the user’s control. But Lotano said GoodLeap makes more noticeable adjustments, such as reducing air conditioning, optional for its subscribers.
“We’re trying to make this as least intrusive as possible,” Lotano said. “You want engagement, you don’t want people to feel forced into doing something.”
In addition to Connecticut, Lotano said the company is also expanding its operations into Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
He said that the company’s expansion has not been deterred by the passage of Republicans’ tax and spending plan, which eliminated federal tax credits for rooftop solar installations starting next year. The law kept in place similar credits for battery-storage systems.
“We expect the solar industry will adapt over time and continue to thrive in a world without incentives through a combination of solar panel cost and technology improvements,” he said in an email.
Connecticut lawmakers in 2021 set a goal of deploying 1,000 megawatts of battery storage by 2030. Of that amount, roughly half — 580 megawatts — is slated to come from the Energy Storage Solutions Program overseen by the Green Bank, with nearly three-quarters of that stored power expected to come from commercial and industrial users.
In total, the state anticipates having about 150 megawatts of electricity deployed through residential battery-storage systems by 2030.