Virtual power plant pays energy users to reduce or shift consumption

California's power needs are met in many ways. Power plants, solar farms and windmills, and now there is Voltus, a virtual power plant that pays energy users to reduce or shift their power consumption.

"We're selling power in energy markets to utilities, but instead of producing additional megawatts, we're reducing megawatts, but we're doing it in a very reliable and predictable way," explained Neil Lakin, the Chief Technology Officer for Voltus.

Voltus provides real-time insights to customers, so they become more energy-efficient on demand. In many cases, that simply requires doing the same work at a different time of day.

"We analyze your consumption. We analyze what you're using, and we take a look at what you can turn down to essentially participate in these demand response events so that you're not only saving the grid, you're keeping a more resilient grid. But you're also making money and you're lowering your carbon footprint," said Stacy Lane, an Account Manager for Voltus.

It requires a tremendous amount of power to pump water all across California, which is why the Westside Water Authority, just north of Bakersfield, uses Voltus technology to reduce their power consumption during peak hours and in the process, produce power for the grid. And lots of it.

"We definitely have a large consumption. We're spread out over four water districts. The size of the equipment and the amount of consumption does represent a very quantifiable change in power consumption that could be used elsewhere," said Daniel Martin, the Director of Automation for Westside Water Authority.

In the first few months of their partnership, Westside Water Authority was paid thousands of dollars for the power they saved, and that same opportunity is becoming a more common way to help stabilize the power grid in California.

"We're not aware of what the grid needs. We need a partner that knows what the grid needs and Voltus fills that gap," Martin added.

"I think what you'll see in the future as this load grows faster than we can deploy new power plants, is we have to get much smarter about using power when we have surplus and reducing power when we don't and we can do that with financial incentives," Lakin said.