Virtual Power Plants Fill Supply Gaps in Heat Wave

Virtual Power Plants - A fancy name for automation and nothing more.

The entire concept is nothing less than should be done as newer and better controls are available to the grid manager.

This technology has been around for decades. Long ago when I lived in small town Wisconsin most homes had electric water heaters. The electric provider installed a device (assumed radio controlled?) that would shutoff the heater element in peak demand. We received a small discount on the bill when we allowed the installation of the shutoff device.

Here today in large metropolis Texas these shutoff devices are unheard of. Having rolling shutdowns of AC units would be much less intrusive than the current plan of rolling blackouts to entire areas.