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Is there a good source for what a virtual power plant is? 

I could probably google this, couldn't I.

The Department of Energy’s liftoff report on virtual power plants is a must read. 

Tl;dr — they are tools that allow a central orchestrator to tap into distributed solar panels and batteries and coordinate their output onto the grid to balance the load for everyone.

The Department of Energy’s liftoff report on virtual power plants is a must read. 

Tl;dr — they are tools that allow a central orchestrator to tap into distributed solar panels and batteries and coordinate their output onto the grid to balance the load for everyone.  

https://liftoff.energy.gov/vpp/

Love the tech, but I’m curious about incentives. What makes homeowners or battery owners opt in to something like this?

Woah, love this idea. Will definitely be looking into where this is being used

From what I remember Sunrun has been a big proponent of this and has done some work in optimizing this. 

They’ve had a tough time converting this to a sustainable business model. But will check on this.