The 'credibility gap' for residential VPPs
OCTOBER 26, 2026
MAEVE ALLSUP | The pitch for residential virtual power plants in the data center era is straightforward: Home batteries, smart thermostats, heat pumps, and EV chargers can be deployed in a matter of months, and if you deploy thousands of them, they offer firm capacity.
Residential aggregators are quick to highlight just how much potential capacity is already out there. And they hope that the combination of electricity cost concerns and the massive energy needs of the AI boom has created a window of opportunity for VPPs to scale.
But at Latitude Media’s inaugural Flex Summit in Austin earlier this month, grid planners outlined their lingering skepticism that the industry can overcome historical barriers quickly enough for residential VPPs to play a meaningful role in meeting load growth.
One ongoing credibility gap for VPPs broadly is whether they can provide enough long-term reliability to supplant major grid infrastructure, explained Brandy Chambers, director of distributed energy solutions at New England’s Eversource Energy.
“A substation project takes 10 years from initial conception through construction,” Chambers said. “My team is very concerned that if we defer or eliminate a major project, relying on these DER assets, what happens if they’re not there in 10 years? We don’t have a plan B."
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Events and Resources
FRONTIER FORUM | NOVEMBER 13 | Beyond peak load: The expanding role of VPPs: Lessons learned from Eversource and National Grid’s experience deploying VPPs to tackle the grid’s most pressing challenges.
FRONTIER FORUM | NOVEMBER 18 | Rethinking the substation: Software as the new operating layer: How software-defined substations help utilities adapt to the changing needs of the grid.
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