Microinverter supplier Enphase Energy has signed a contract with Vermont-based utility GreenMountain Power (GMP) to supply residential battery energy storage systems for the GMP Virtual Power Plant (VPP) program.

　　The program offers GMP corporate customers the option to lease energy storage systems, purchase outright or register residential energy storage systems. In both cases, the plan will require customers to agree to share access to battery storage systems to help grid operations during periods of peak demand for electricity.

　　Under the signed lease agreement, Enphase Energy will provide two Enphase IQ Battery 10 energy storage units to 100 eligible GMP customers, who can pay $65 a month for ten years, or a one-time payment of $6,500 USD (excluding installation costs).

　　The second option offered by the program is for GMP company customers to purchase Enphase energy systems outright, or to enroll existing residential energy storage systems into the utility's Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) grid service program.

　　The BYOD program pays participants a one-time up-front payment incentive of up to $9,500 to purchase four Enphase IQ Battery 10 battery storage units and an additional $100/kW to connect with battery storage systems in areas where power is most needed. Supporting deployment of solar power generation facilities. Customers will be able to monitor the participation of battery storage systems in the grid using GMP's in-house application.

　　Josh Castonguay, vice president and chief innovation officer at GMP, said: “Our growing energy storage network can deliver cost savings to customers and help reduce carbon emissions and costs. Extending this pioneering work with another pilot program will allow for more Customers use energy storage technology while saving costs through a shared network of Neighborhood Aid.”

　　GMP said its existing shared energy storage network will save about $3 million in costs for all customers in 2021 by reducing power demand during peak energy periods.

　　The IQ Battery 10 is a residential energy storage solution using Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries. Its energy storage unit has an installed capacity of 3.84kW and an energy storage capacity of 10.09kWh.

　　In conjunction with the announcement, Enphase Energy also introduced a Distributed Energy Management System (DERMS) called Grid Services Manager, which GMP will use to manage Enphase Energy's Virtual Power Plant (VPP).

　　The company added that Vermont customers can now install its IQ 8 solar microinverter, removing the technical limitations of the IQ Battery 10 battery storage system when paired with solar power facilities.

　　Dave Ranhoff, Chief Commercial Officer of Enphase Energy, said: “We are proud to partner with GMP on this project to provide the Enphase IQ battery storage system and IQ8 microinverter to customers in Vermont. Our leading software and hardware enable It's easier than ever to build and deploy a virtual power plant. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the professionalism and experience of our local partners, all of whom provide our customers with a first-class service and experience."

　　Enphase Energy mainly sells microinverters, but its energy storage segment is also growing strongly, with 110-120MWh of energy storage systems expected to be sold in the first quarter of 2022.

　　Software is an increasingly important product for energy storage solution providers across sectors, especially in emerging technology solutions such as distributed energy resources (DER) and virtual power plants (VPP). The potential for these plans to bring customer-side energy storage and power assets to the grid is enormous, so any platform that performs well has the potential to scale exponentially.

　　Virtual power plant (VPP) specialist Swell Energy, for example, recently launched its own DERMS platform and raised $450 million to scale up the development after securing a contract for a virtual power plant (VPP) with a total capacity of 300MWh. At the end of last year, other groups with DERMS platforms, such as Autogrid and Leap, collectively raised more than $100 million.

　　SES Power believes that the VPP model is essentially the rational storage and rational use of electrical energy to the greatest extent, which can change the game rules of the existing power grid. The VPP mode requires a large number of distributed energy storage units. These units generally abandon ternary lithium batteries with short life cycles and low safety, and convert them to lithium iron phosphate batteries with longer life and better safety performance. The disadvantage of the lithium iron phosphate battery being too large is not a hindrance to its development in this project. Our 12V100Ah, 24V100Ah, 36V100Ah, 48V100Ah, 3KW, 5KW home energy storage systems, rack-mounted energy storage systems and other products of square aluminum-shell lithium iron phosphate batteries using EVE, CATL, and BYD have very stable performance and relatively low prices. It is more stable than the ternary lithium battery.