NRG Energy announced it is partnering with Renew Home, a virtual power plant (VPP) company, to upgrade its residential VPP capabilities with the aim to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 and create a nearly 1 GW AI-powered VPP – enabled by Google Cloud technology.
NRG and Renew Home expect to roll out their VPP program to Texas customers in the spring of 2025. Earlier this year, Renew Home launched out of the combination of Google’s Nest Renew service and OhmConnect, which the new company said brought together millions of customers across the nation.
Texas is experiencing an increase in peak energy demand due to population, load growth, and extreme weather, reaching a demand surge of 85 GW in 2023, NRG said, and a 1 GW VPP delivers capacity equivalent to 200,000 homes during peak demand.
To build the VPP, NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG’s retail electricity providers and plans. These thermostats are meant to make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner. Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the VPP.
“As rapid population growth and weather events create new challenges for meeting demand in ERCOT, VPPs can deliver a reliable, flexible, and dispatchable energy resource,” said Ben Brown, Renew Home CEO. “NRG’s commitment to creating a more resilient and sustainable energy future while also making electricity bills more affordable makes them an ideal partner for co-developing this unique VPP program. This initiative raises the bar for future-proofing our electricity infrastructure and delivering cost savings to customers.”
To maximize the impact of the VPP and other strategic initiatives, NRG will embark on a broad multi-year technology transformation with Google Cloud. Through the use of Google Cloud’s data, analytics, and AI technology, NRG argues it will be able to better predict weather conditions, forecast wind and solar generation output, and create predictive pricing models.
“As we move toward a more sustainable future and face increasing energy demands, Google Cloud recognizes the importance of partnering with innovators like NRG and Renew Home to help transform the consumer energy experience with AI and the best of Google Cloud,” said Michael Clark, President, North America, Google Cloud. “Our collaboration will help Texas meet its growing energy demands, and also empower consumers to get more from their energy, smart home, and essential home services in the future.”
As of the time of Renew Home’s launch in May, Renew already controlled nearly 3GW of electrical energy use, and is planning to expand to 50GW by 2030 – approximately 25% of the total VPP growth recently projected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). DOE projects that by tripling the scale of VPPs, we could meet 10-20% of peak electricity demand by 2030 – which would avoid $10 billion in grid costs.
Renew Home is already working with the Google Home APIs as a platform provider of integrations to control devices and energy use in millions of homes, the company said. Renew Home also integrates with additional devices and appliances in the home – including LG, Honeywell, SunPower, Sense, and others – and will support demand response and VPP programs with more than 100 utilities.
