Voltus President and Co-founder, Matt Plante, joins Julia Bunte-Mein from The Seeds to discuss the electric grid of the future, the DER technology and policy to get us there, lessons learned from the Texas and California blackouts, and what makes Voltus special.
Read more about The Seeds and its creator, Julia Bunte-Mein, here. Learn more about becoming a Voltan here. More questions? Email info@voltus.co.
Author: Matt Plante, President & Co-founder
On Monday, March 9th, 2020, during Veritas (our weekly all-hands call), we hired our 67th employee (Lauren Stenstream, Indomitable Controller), we named Luke “Snakeman” Talltree the Voltan of the Week (Luke installed our technology at seven new customer sites that week), and we celebrated International Women’s Day. Oh yes, and we announced that we were moving our first ever customer conference, scheduled to be held in Times Square on April 1st, to a virtual meeting. On March 9th, 2020, the world had changed.
We’ve now been living in that changed world for over a full year. 8760+ hours. It’s a year – for obvious reasons, for many reasons, for countless virtual conference reasons – that we don’t ever want to repeat.
Yet today, we hired our 104th employee (Jesus Martinez, Production Technician), we were publicly lauded by one of the world’s largest companies for helping them manage February’s Texas energy crisis, and we closed a deal with an important partner. Oh yes, and we hired Jon Wellinghoff, the former FERC Chairman (since you’re reading an energy blog, I suppose that last clause was unnecessary).
2020 threw haymaker after haymaker…and we came out stronger. The following seven reasons help explain why, and we hope they will help others lead through times of adversity as well.
We did something else today: we booked an actual, physical, in-person location for VoltusFest, our semi-annual company-wide off-site. We’ll be in Austin, where we’ll share, support, make mistakes, innovate, get after it, celebrate, and, yes, love. We can’t wait. We cannot wait.
We’re hiring. View all open positions at www.voltus.co/join-us
Voltus, Inc., the world’s leading Distributed Energy Resources (DER) technology platform, announces a historic win in its battle to ensure the equal treatment of all DERs in wholesale power markets. Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) responded to Voltus’s October filing by taking steps to unify the treatment of all DERs under Order 2222, ensuring that demand response (DR) can fully participate in wholesale markets as part of DER aggregations without discriminatory state and local barriers.
“FERC’s clarification provides an immediate opportunity for demand response to deliver reliability, economic, and sustainability benefits to every state that is part of a wholesale power market,” said Voltus Chief Regulatory Officer and former FERC Chairman, Jon Wellinghoff. “DER aggregators like Voltus will be able to help customers and DER partners access states that previously restricted demand response from coming to market.”
In his opening statements at today’s meeting, FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee lauded the Commission’s decision to prevent the state opt-out provision in Order 719 from “serving as a barrier to demand response resources participating in mixed aggregations.” Chatterjee also stated, “Our responsibility is to make sure our federal wholesale markets deliver reliable low-cost energy services to consumers and the way to get there is to make sure emerging technologies can enter the market, period.”
Voltus celebrates the significance of this step for energy consumers nationwide. “We’re very grateful that FERC removed this barrier to full DR market participation so quickly,” says Gregg Dixon, Voltus Co-founder and CEO. “The benefits of this decision will result in significantly lower wholesale electricity prices, a more reliable grid, and a better environment for all.”
About Voltus, Inc.
Voltus aims to be the Distributed Energy Platform that fulfills the promise of the energy transition. Voltus represents the “potential of us” to better manage energy through simple, cost and risk-free programs for Distributed Energy Resources. To learn more, visit www.voltus.co.
Voltus Media Relations
Kelly Yazdani
Director of Marketing
703-340-9353
kyazdani@voltus.co
That’s the value of economic loss occurring in the ERCOT region of Texas right now, based on the load sector weighted average of the Value of Lost Load (VOLL), the result of a study commissioned to London Economics by ERCOT in 2013. The weighted average VOLL is $22,243 per megawatt hour (MWh) in ERCOT. Over the past three days about 20,000 MWs of electricity hasn’t been delivered per hour that otherwise would be delivered if not for the effects of the polar vortex. You can do the math on the rolling economic impact.
$180 million per hour is the economic impact to power producers not operating to deliver that 20,000 MWs of power per hour if you apply the ERCOT locational marginal price (LMP) cap of $9,000/MWh. And for many of the 127 retail electricity providers (REPs) in ERCOT who sell a fixed price electricity product to consumers, and who don’t hedge their supply, they are likely facing bankruptcy.
For consumers who have been consuming electricity during the past few days, and who have been buying electricity at the LMP, their power bill for three days will likely exceed their entire annual budget for electricity spend. Griddy, in an act of transparency, proactively communicated this situation to their customers. When the dust settles, these central US power outages will likely prove to be the most costly power outages in human history, measured in dozens of lives lost and tens of billions of dollars, far exceeding the effects from the 2003 blackout that hit the Northeast US.
While the pundits and sideline snipers are eager to blame and point fingers, rest assured that ERCOT, or any wholesale power market operator (SPP and MISO currently) in a similar situation, is doing their level best to balance the needs of consumers, regulators, suppliers, and politicians, all of whom establish the electricity markets upon which our livelihoods depend more and more. Now is the time to offer solutions to help electricity market operators deal with the cataclysmic challenges of climate change, the effects of which will accelerate and produce more frequent, similar situations. We can no longer “wait and see.”
The good news is that power market operators have an incredibly powerful tool at their disposal to ensure power quality, resilience, and affordability right now . . . distributed energy resources. 200,000 MWs of these resources lie in wait in the US alone. Much like the mainframes and “dumb terminals” of the 1970s, our current power grid is characterized largely by central power stations and “dumb loads.” The internet now offers a single standard upon which every digital device can choose to connect, creating a platform for massive innovation and unlocking the value of networks. Voltus dreams of a single electricity transmission superhighway, a single wholesale power market, and an interconnected system of distributed energy technologies operating in conjunction with central power stations, grid operators, and local utilities who have the systems they need to ensure that our modern, digital economy has uninterrupted, affordable, clean, and resilient power.
Today, our distributed energy resources are operating at full tilt to help ERCOT, SPP, and MISO. Our Texas teammates are on the front lines, bringing value to our customers, and operating the virtual power plants that these market operators are making use of right now. Our team and technology is built to unleash the massive benefits of distributed energy resources in every market in the world.
Let’s go!!!
Gregg Dixon
CEO & Co-founder
greggdixon@voltus.co
Image Credit: USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/02/16/texas-weather-power-outage-rolling-blackouts-leave-millions-dark/6764764002/
Right now, Texas is experiencing the most acute energy crisis in nearly 10 years. This afternoon, due to record low temperatures, load is forecasted to exceed system capacity by 10,000 megawatts.
For the first time in its history, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) is calling for scheduled blackouts to ensure system reliability as demand surpasses available generation.
Demand response exists for days like today. Our customers are executing their electricity curtailment plans, earning demand response revenue, avoiding $9,000/MWh energy costs in Texas, and doing their part to help the electric grid resume normal operations as soon as possible.
The need for more demand response has never been more apparent. We continue to be in close communication with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and SPP to provide additional relief today and moving forward.
As our dedicated team of Voltans rallies around Texas on this would-be three-day weekend, we are reminded that although the grid never sleeps, the key to ushering in the clean energy transition lies firmly in our hands.
Matt Plante
President & Co-founder
mplante@voltus.co
Ontario’s demand response market has grown for the sixth consecutive year and Voltus is continuing to grow with it. The IESO procured almost 1 GW of capacity at one tenth the per MW-Year cost of the generator contracts that make up the Global Adjustment. Capacity auctions provide a more flexible and cost effective option than generator contracts, and the IESO will increase its reliance on auctions as contracts expire over the next 20 years.
Voltus is now the 3rd largest Demand Response Aggregator in Ontario. “We are excited to provide our 82 MWs of customers with over $25,000 per MW each year responding to critical grid events in the province,” says Voltus Vice President of Energy Markets and Product Dana Guernsey. This demand response program will run from May through October next year, but is likely to return to running year-round in 2023, as the need for capacity increases. “The time is ripe for Ontario businesses to offer their operational flexibility to the grid as we expect the value of demand response in Ontario to only increase over time,” says Guernsey.
Source: Average of Recovery Scenarios provided in the July 22, 2020 IESO Planning Update
For Ontario businesses considering taking the plunge into demand response participation, this program is straightforward operationally and quite lucrative; the Summer season has historically only seen 1-2 events per year, equating to $3,000 to $6,000 per MWh in earnings potential.
Participation in programs like this helps reduce the Province’s dependence on fossil fuels and keeps electricity rates lower as new power plants and transmission line investments can be deferred. Program enrollment is limited though. The value goes to the first businesses to jump on board.
Interested in earning cash for your business through demand response? Email info@voltus.co to get started.
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Michael Pohlod, IESO Energy Markets Manager, mpohlod@voltus.co
Voltus CEO, Gregg Dixon, and Suncast’s Nico Johnson are back to talk about the 4 Horsemen of Distributed Energy Resources
The interview is also available on Suncast’s website: https://mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/325. You can subscribe to Suncast via iTunes.
Interested in becoming a Voltan? View all open positions at https://www.voltus.co/join-us/
Voltus CEO, Gregg Dixon, joined Nico Johnson to talk leadership, building a business, the challenges of growth, the importance of culture, and the future of distributed energy resources.
The interview is also available on Suncast’s website: http://www.mysuncast.com/
Interested in becoming a Voltan? View all open positions at https://www.voltus.co/join-us/
Today is a day to honor American veterans of all wars. It is a day most people acknowledge and respect, but maybe – mostly just appreciate the day off. Voltus is actually the first company since I left active duty who recognizes Veterans Day! So, I too appreciate the day off. With that, I want to share what being a Veteran means to me.
Indoc had begun. What I thought Indoc – Indoctrination – would resemble was something close to summer camp and getting to know each other and learn (very kumbaya). I was wrong – very wrong – and in for a rude awakening. Indoc is abbreviated boot camp. With my first step onto the bus to take me to base, Gunny started yelling at me. I apologized: “Sorry Sir,” which sent him apoplectic. Turns out you don’t call gunnery sergeants “Sir.”
My family ties to the military ended with grandfathers I barely knew. I did not grow up learning about the ranks, the branches of the military and their history. I just knew I wanted to be part of the greatest American tradition – be part of something great. I was named after my father’s fraternity brother (Stephen) who died in the Vietnam War. I grew up listening to my father opine about the greatness of the military. He had enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam War – got rejected due to a heart condition – and then was drafted, and subsequently disqualified when they found out about his medical status. It was his greatest regret not having the opportunity to serve, and I would not have that same regret.
Before my friendly greeting by Gunny on the bus, my father said goodbye and reminded me, that this was “a great time to be in the military – it is a time of peace. You will learn and be given amazing opportunities you cannot find anywhere else.” Three weeks later was September 11, 2001. It was time to prepare for battle. The tradition expanded. The mission even more critical.
Four years later I landed on The Big Stick (USS Theodore Roosevelt – an aircraft carrier) in the Persian Gulf. It was time to finally be part of the mission. During college my Naval ROTC classmates and I shared a lot of similarities, but now that I was joining Air Wing EIGHT in an active war zone, my new teammates ran the gamut. A variety of backgrounds, experiences, ages, ethnicities, but we were all there for a single purpose: the mission. We had almost nothing in common except our drive to serve. This is where I learned the true definition of camaraderie.
The people I served with – most I haven’t seen in 10+ years – shared a unique experience, bond and mission with me. It is the people who are next to you during the endless hours, who ensure together you achieve success – no matter the stress, no matter the sacrifice. No amount of time nor separation could erode the experience. This summer, one called me and it was as if no time had passed. We still have nothing in common, but I could talk to him for hours. I hung up the phone feeling elevated – feeling grateful for the comrades I had made. Grateful for the experience I had had.
There is no doubt in my mind that the two organizations I will have “served” in my career with the greatest and most impactful camaraderie will be The United States Navy and Voltus, Inc. I can say that knowing I have many more decades ahead of me.
The parallels between the two organizations are uncanny.
But the greatest parallel is the camaraderie. We share a unique experience, bond and mission. No amount of separation can erode the experience we have had (and will continue to have).
2020 has been a year. Highs and lows – a lot of lows. A lot of challenges. But some great highs as well. We have been through this time together, but our team is something special. And thanks to the leadership of Gregg and Matt we have the opportunity to expand our team and mission. We might be prohibited from time together right now, but because of the bright, gritty, good people on this team, we still have a rare camaraderie that most never get to experience. This is the group of people we get to do good with. The team we get to charge into 2021 with – armed and ready for what is next.
2021 is upon us. The tradition of (and need for) demand response expanded. The mission even more critical.
I will forever be proud and grateful to have served in the Navy and forever proud and grateful to be a Voltan.
Happy Veterans Day!
Stephanie Hendricks, VP of Operations & Customer Success
Interested in becoming a Voltan and joining our mission? View all available positions at www.voltus.co/join-us.
Flexible load, responding to real-time price signals: an energy economist’s dream come true. Customers avoid paying electricity prices that drive the costs of production higher than the value of the widgets being made, simultaneously reducing demand on the system and associated costs.
In practice, however, economic curtailment can be
For certain businesses that can provide fast-response load curtailment, Operating Reserves (OR) is a better alternative, resulting in lower net electricity costs without the frequent hassles of economic curtailment.
Tricky to get right
Accurately predicting price spikes, especially with enough notice to drive curtailment decisions, is not straightforward. System operators tend to either under- or over-forecast electricity prices the majority of the time. Forecasts are often biased high, and often by a significant margin when actual prices turn out to be low.1, 2
In addition, earlier price forecasts leading up to a given hour can vary wildly based on shifting expectations of system conditions (imports/exports, renewable generation output, etc.). From one hour to the next, a price spike that very afternoon could go from looking implausible to imminent. Sophisticated modeling services can help improve accuracy, but the reality remains that predicting price spikes is just tricky to get right.
Operationally challenging
Curtailing load to avoid high prices can impose operational challenges. Periods of sustained high prices may merit prolonged shutdowns. Very brief load reductions would be required to avoid isolated price spikes, and are likely not worth the shutdown/startup costs and operational hassle.
A better alternative
In fast-response OR programs, loads help balance real-time supply and demand on the grid by curtailing when called upon by the system operator. Businesses get paid to be available to reduce their load, and they are called upon at most a few times per month. Operating Reserves participation is open to customers regardless of retail rate structure, not just to those who are exposed to real-time rates.
While a business on real-time rates does end up using “expensive electricity” to produce its widgets, payments for being available for OR are linked to the real-time price (i.e. you get paid more to be available when prices are high). On net, electricity costs minus OR revenues generally turn out to be less for a customer participating in OR than for the same customer tracking prices and curtailing economically (even assuming they do hit the majority of high-priced hours accurately). To achieve the same net electricity costs through economic curtailment, a customer would need to curtail for hundreds of hours per year!3
Take home
If you want to minimize electricity costs and your business can provide fast-response load curtailment, Operating Reserves is in short a better alternative. The end result? Lower overall costs for much less curtailment.
Notes
1All figures are illustrative, based on a case study for Alberta, Canada.
2Peak shaving to avoid system capacity charges is a separate electricity cost management strategy. This article focuses purely on energy ($/MWh) related charges.
3Assumes 60% customer accuracy for avoiding price spikes.
Nicole Irwin-Viet
Energy Markets Manager
Interested in learning more about how your business can earn cash in Operating Reserves programs? Chat with our team below or email info@voltus.co to get started.
