How virtual power plants became a daily grid resource with Matt Plante

In this episode, James talks with Matt Plante, President of Voltus, about what it actually takes to build a virtual power plant that grid operators call on every single day.

Voltus aggregates distributed energy resources, including industrial loads, batteries, commercial buildings, and now residential assets, into virtual power plants that participate in wholesale electricity markets. Since April 2024, Voltus has been dispatched by a grid operator every single day, a milestone that signals demand flexibility has moved from emergency backup to standard operating procedure. Matt joins James to unpack how the company has grown 10x since their 2021 conversation, what finally made the battery cost curve work, and why the barriers to scale look nothing like the barriers to entry.

James and Matt get into:

• Why the shift from no-load-growth to explosive load growth has changed what grid operators will consider, and how fast
• How batteries went from not penciling to the fastest-growing DER segment in Voltus's portfolio
• What data centers actually want from demand flexibility programs, and why forcing them to participate would backfire
• Why FERC 2222 hasn't delivered and what it actually takes to unlock new states for third-party demand response

The grid's relationship to distributed resources has fundamentally changed, and this episode is a clear-eyed look at what made that shift happen and what comes next.

Paces helps developers find and evaluate the sites most suitable for renewable development. Interested in a call with James, CEO @ Paces?