Positive Developments for Solar and Virtual Power Stations in Canada

In a small residential community in Canada, Blatchford, a groundbreaking project is underway. Twenty homes, equipped with solar panels and storage batteries, have come together to form a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), marking a significant step towards a more sustainable energy future.

The VPP in Blatchford is a collaboration between Germany's Sonnen, local utilities EPCOR and Solartility. Sonnen provides the battery systems and software, while EPCOR and Solartility act as local utility partners, managing the system. This partnership is a testament to the potential benefits of such projects for other families.

Rebecca Calder, a resident of the Blatchford VPP, expressed her satisfaction with the system, recommending it to other families. Despite Edmonton's northerly location, cold climate, and heavy snowfall, which are not typically ideal for solar power, the VPP is functioning effectively.

Virtual power plants like the one in Blatchford can add more wind and solar to the grid by filling gaps when it's not windy or sunny, and they help stabilize the grid by matching electricity supply with demand. They also have the potential to lower costs for utility companies and ratepayers by reducing or deferring the need to spend money on building physical power plants and other electricity infrastructure.

The Blatchford VPP is capable of storing 2 megawatt-hours of electricity and is networked together. While this may seem small compared to the enormous VPP in California, operated by PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E, which was created using 100,000 residential storage batteries from Tesla and Sunrun, supplying about 535 megawatts of electricity to the grid, it is a promising start.

Interest in this technology is not limited to Canada. There is interest in virtual power plants in British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, suggesting a growing trend towards decentralized, renewable energy sources.

The VPP in California was a test that demonstrated the reliability of solar power, contradicting the "solar power is not reliable" argument often made by ultra-right-wing fossil fuel supporters. This reliability is particularly important as Canada may need to double or triple its electrical grid capacity by 2050 to reach its net-zero emissions goal, which would require costly upgrades to the entire grid.

The shift towards renewable energy is not limited to North America. Africa is also seeing a rise in solar energy, which could potentially lead to a shift in conventional utility models. Pakistan has been adding significant amounts of solar energy, suggesting that its conventional electrical grid may no longer be necessary for some of its citizens.

The rapid increase in power from the sun and wind, and the resistance from the fossil fuel industry to prevent this new power from becoming mainstream, is a topic discussed in Bill McKibben's latest book, Here Comes the Sun. As more communities follow in the footsteps of Blatchford, the future of energy may well belong to renewables.