Community Conversations: Virtual Power Plants Register

Date and Time:
Tue, Jun 16, 2026; 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM  (Eastern)

Organized By: Maine Chapter

Location: Virtual

Some of our members have undoubtedly heard of the Victory Gardens during World War II times.  Would installing a home battery serve to gain victory in the energy transition?  The answer is emphatically yes, but our three panelists on June 16 will fill in the rationale and details of home batteries.  Briefly, they have two purposes:  home electrical backup and grid services.  The former, met mostly by fossil-fuel generators at this time, is a common addition to residences.  The latter is relatively new, but utilities across the US are beginning to design and implement programs around the addition of home batteries as micro-sources of electricity to the grid.  These are called virtual power plants (VPPs), one of the hottest topics in electricity supply these days.  In this case, the owner of the batteries can actually make money by arbitraging the energy stored in the home battery — buy low (off-peak times) and sell high (on-peak times).  The utility, or its appointed broker, tracks the home battery input and output and compensates the battery owner for their contribution to the supply of electricity at times of peak demand.  Large, commercial battery facilities are already doing this — why not individual utility customers with relatively small battery installations? It only takes intelligent software to get everyone into the game.  At this time, peak demand in Maine comes during the week from about 5 PM to 9 PM, but that is changing as we move into using more heat pumps for heating (or cooling) and into charging electric vehicles at home.  

  Josh Castonguay (VP and Chief Innovation Officer - Green Mt. Power)

  Ethan Tremblay (Manager, Planning & Policy – Maine DOER)