Plans unveiled for 550-megawatt virtual power plant in California

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 9, 2020

Plans for a 550-megawatt virtual power plant (VPP) in California were unveiled on Dec. 7 by Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP) and OhmConnect.

The Resi-Station project will be funded by an $80 million commitment from SIP and developed in partnership with OhmConnect and will comprise hundreds of thousands of active customers with a fleet of in-home, smart devices that can deliver targeted energy reductions, orchestrated by OhmConnect technology that predicts, incentivizes, and coordinates energy use.

At full scale, Resi-Station will be the largest residential VPP in the world, according to SIP and OhmConnect.

SIP announced a $100 million transaction as part of its new advanced power grid platform, Resilia, which is focused on making electric systems bidirectional, transactive, and distributed. The transaction includes a $20 million investment in OhmConnect, Inc. and an $80 million commitment to the Resi-Station project.

The funding of the project commitment is subject to customary regulatory approvals.

In order to scale up Resi-Station, SIP and OhmConnect are partnering with Google to offer Nest thermostats to hundreds of thousands of participants in the OhmConnect software program enabling Resi-Station.

Additional information on the VPP is available here.

SIP builds, owns, operates, and invests in both advanced infrastructure projects and technology companies. SIP’s investors include Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.