Tesla has been permitted to develop a "statewide market design pilot" for a virtual power plant in Texas. The firm can group its Powerwall users to provide grid services in the state and secure payment for them. Toyota also intends to collaborate with Oncor, a Texas-based electric utility, on vehicle-to-grid technology that might rival Elon Musk's business.
A Tesla logo is seen on a 250kW electric vehicle charging station at the Tesla Inc. supercharger station on January 4, 2021, in Hawthorne, California. - After shares rocketed higher in 2020 on surging auto deliveries, Tesla enters 2021 with plenty of momentum even as its vision of taking electric cars mainstream remains a way off
Tesla Virtual Power Plant
If you buy a Tesla Powerwall, a battery pack the electric vehicle manufacturer sells for households; you may soon join what the business refers to as a "virtual power plant." According to Tesla's U.S. markets policy director Arushi Sharma Frank on LinkedIn (via MySanAntonio), the company has been permitted to develop a "statewide market design pilot" policy for a virtual power plant or VPP.
Tesla and tech industry news electrek mentioned that Texas residents who possess Powerwalls, which act as a backup power source by storing energy, would permit the state power grid to draw electricity from the batteries when the system has a need. Tesla introduced a VPP scheme in California last year, where users would be paid $2 per kilowatt-hour for sharing power during periods of high demand.
The establishment of Tesla Electric in Texas is the most recent step in the company's effort to create virtual power plants (VPPs), including initiatives like the 2018 construction of a 250-megawatt VPP in Australia. More than 300 Powerwalls are being used at a facility in Japan that Tesla started construction on in 2021 to power residences on the island of Miyako-Jima.
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Toyota's Virtual Power Plant
Although Tesla's Powerwall and related Virtual Power Plant and Toyota's vehicle-to-grid solution may sound rather different, Teslarati mentioned that the products sound pretty familiar. In times of heavy demand or system damage, the proposed new product would enable users to transmit their energy back to the grid, in this example, from their automobiles.
Toyota underlines that this system will first serve as a research pilot project that would eventually evolve into a larger system, "[enabling] Toyota and Oncor to be better equipped to support the broader EV charging ecosystem in the United States." The system will be put through its paces at Oncor's grid testing center south of Dallas, Texas. A more open testing phase starts in Texas, inside Oncor's service territory, shortly after that, in 2023.
Toyota did not say when the program would be made generally accessible or whether it would be subject to securing agreements with utility companies. But if Toyota's scheme is anything like Tesla's VPP program in Texas, each location would probably need to work with the regional electricity provider in some capacity.
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