Wasatch Energy Group and sonnen have committed to deploying a series of residential virtual power plant (VPP) projects in California.
The Wasatch California VPP Fleet I and II will outfit some 3,000 residential apartment homes with solar generation and sonnen intelligent battery energy storage. In aggregate, the project is set to become the largest apartment-community-based VPP fleet in the world upon its 2021 completion. The project boasts over 60 MWh of energy storage capacity and over 24 MW of power capacity and will be funded by $130 million in capital from Wasatch and external investors.
In total, the Wasatch California VPP Fleet I and II will include seven Wasatch premier communities, located throughout the state. The first solar+storage retrofit work begins in September at the 417-unit Heron Pointe apartment community in Fresno with Soleil Energy, the new engineering, procurement and construction company established by the Wasatch Group for its ongoing VPP deployments.
“It has been an honor to partner with the Wasatch Energy Group and now Soleil Energy, to help develop these projects,” says Blake Richetta, chairman and CEO of sonnen.
“These projects are the result of two years of hard work, planning and dedication to the mission of building a cleaner, more reliable and secure energy future for humanity,” he adds.
The Wasatch California VPP fleets will all feature sonnen ecoLinx intelligent battery storage systems. Individual sonnen systems within each community will be capable of communicating with each other as a single intelligent battery asset, harmonizing and optimizing the community’s solar production, grid usage and individual apartment loads.
The VPP projects are also built for participation in the California demand response market and other grid services. The VPP fleets will ensure resiliency for every resident of the community by providing access to the onsite solar energy and batteries, which act as constantly-regenerating, clean and reliable energy supply.
Photo: An aerial view of the Heron Pointe apartment community