Independent power producer ENGIE North America Inc. and software specialist Kiwi Power Ltd. have completed a virtual power plant at a commercial high-rise building in Texas that relies on demand response to dispatch 4.1 MW of controllable load into the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas Inc. market, Kiwi Power CEO Jay Zoellner said.
"We're using the opportunity in ERCOT to be able to take real-time price signals and have the building operate ... in response to that in a very interactive way," Zoellner said in an interview.
The project, at an undisclosed location, is part of an evolving relationship between French energy giant Engie SA and London-headquartered Kiwi Power. Engie has helped the young company, founded in 2009, expand its operations through previous demand response and energy storage projects, and its venture investment arm, ENGIE New Ventures, is a major investor in Kiwi Power.
A reflection of the growing use of software to aggregate and control distributed energy resources at residential and commercial sites to participate in wholesale markets, their latest agreement, announced July 21, focuses on virtual power plants in the ERCOT and PJM Interconnection markets. They are also working with a public utility in Ontario to gain experience in the Independent Electricity System Operator market as well.
"The real value, the ability to provide flexibility to the grid, is what is really critical," said Zoellner.
'A big catalyst'
Zoellner, who joined Kiwi Power in September 2019 from Edison Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Edison International, sees momentum building in other U.S. regions as well, facilitated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's landmark order to remove barriers to energy storage participation in wholesale markets.
"FERC Order 841 ... is a big catalyst for moving the market in the right direction," Zoellner said.
With its software platform, Kiwi Power manages more than 1,000 MW of distributed energy and demand response assets in 10 countries, primarily in France and the United Kingdom.
"We were impressed with the simplicity and power of the Kiwi Power solution and see it as a competitive advantage to expand our energy flexibility presence in North America at scale," Vikram Kulkarni, vice president of sustainability solutions at ENGIE North America, said in a statement.
Engie, through its venture capital business, is investing in a suite of startups involved in renewable energy and energy storage software and hardware, including Advanced Microgrid Solutions, kWh Analytics Inc. and Lancey Energy Storage SAS.