Simply Energy's Virtual Power Plant (VPP) will no longer be limited to South Australia and will soon be expanded to all National Energy Market (NEM) states.

The expansion of the VPP follows a successful South Australia trial funded by ARENA. ENGIE's retail business hired energy scheduling software company SwitchDin in 2019 so that retailers can include more types of batteries in the VPP.

Ryan Wavish, general manager of Simply Energy Solutions, told Ecogeneration that in South Australia, the company's Droplet technology is used to integrate with more battery types so that more customers can become part of VPP.

The retailer will now also use Stormcloud, the software company's cloud orchestration platform, to coordinate various solar inverters and battery storage units across NEM states. By using this system, retailers will be able to provide energy market transactions and provide frequency control assistance services (FCAS) for equipment on the VPP.

Dr. Andrew Mears, CEO and founder of SwitchDin, said: “By combining these different asset types, this means that we can start to build economies of scale as these aggregated fleets begin to play a more important role in the market.”

According to the existing discount, customers can get a credit of USD 240 on their electricity bills every year. Mr. Wavish said that the company will launch a new service in January for customers who want to extract more value from solar and battery systems.

The company also hopes to use community batteries as part of the VPP growth.

At this stage, Mr. Wavish has not yet determined the number of battery types that can be included in the VPP. There are five types in SA VPP.

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