Google funds 100-MW virtual power plant in PJM — SkimNews
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- Google agreed in June to fund a 100-MW virtual power plant in PJM Interconnection operated by Voltus, paying residential, commercial and industrial customers over a three-year contract that holds Voltus responsible for Google's capacity obligation.
- Jon Wellinghoff, former FERC chair and Voltus's chief regulatory officer, called the deal "a turning point" that lets markets treat distributed capacity "like any other capacity resource," enabling hyperscalers to pursue utility-scale "bring-your-own-new-capacity."
- A 2025 Department of Energy study found distributed resources could meet up to 20% of U.S. peak load by 2030; PJM's July 2 record peak load hit 168.2 GW, and interconnection queues across regional systems remain years long.
- PG&E, Google and Rewiring America launched the SHARE program in September, enrolling 20,000+ customer-owned DERs plus battery-enabled heat pumps — a pilot that Jigar Shah called "not a success story" given PG&E has no CPUC-approved program compensating its behind-the-meter batteries.
- FERC rejected most of PJM's large load interconnection plan that would have imposed high curtailment risk on customers failing to bring new capacity, intensifying pressure on hyperscalers and utilities to find distributed alternatives.
- Voltus raised $225 million in Series D financing targeting 20 GW of distributed capacity by 2030, while Sunrun, Everyday Electric and Tesla agreed to supply over 16 GW of flexible capacity and Schneider, Octopus Energy US and Uplight target 20 GW within five years.
Why it matters: Hyperscalers now have a contractual template — Google's Voltus deal — for outsourcing capacity obligations to distributed providers rather than waiting years in interconnection queues. With PJM prices at record highs and FERC rejecting the grid operator's plan to penalize large loads, utilities, aggregators and states are racing to scale distributed capacity into a market-grade resource worth up to 20% of U.S. peak load by 2030.
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